Role of Re-conceptualization in Teachers’ Professional Development

According to Gorodetsky and Keiny (2002), conceptual conflicts arise during the processes of assimilation and accommodation of new learning, lead to conceptual change. However, this needs to be coupled with the processes like reflection, critical thinking and self-study to attain the goal of meaningful learning. Before we go into this discussion, the first question arises, what is Re—conceptualization? There is no precise way to define re-conceptualization as it depends on our perceptions. However, I agree with the following words:

It is the notion of making the unknown explicit, understanding the underlying assumptions, beliefs, values, and experiences that inform one’s actions. (Alvi.U, e-mail, Dec 9, 05)

When we talk about re-conceptualization in teaching, it is described as a learning process that helps teachers to reflect and understand their own beliefs, perceptions and practices of teaching learning process. It also helps teachers to critically analyze their own curriculum orientation and provides an opportunity for enhancing the understanding through discovery of alternatives. In the following section, I will try to analyze the notion of re-conceptualization and its importance for teachers’ professional development in the light of my own experiences.

Link between Reflective Practice and Re-conceptualization

Reflection implies more than thinking. It is not only based on reasoning but involves the process of challenging the self for a changed self-perception. This is re-conceptualization. Reflective thinking which is always purposeful (Dinkelman, 2003) is not a routine thinking, but we engage and make decisions through arguments for the rationale and future implication of improvement in self-perception. As Dinkelman (2003) explains that reflective practice enables teachers to think about what they are doing and why, and reason through their problems so that their pedagogy is more appropriate to the given situation.

The basic difference between routine thinking and critical thinking is that the former is objective based but latter is for improvement purpose. For example, in my context, I used to think about the positive and negative aspects of the lesson after every session, which I considered as reflection. Now, I realized that this was not critical thinking process. It might lead to a well-informed teaching process as it is guided by thinking. However, critical thinking directs the teacher to identify and reflect on each part of his/her lesson and to analyze how it could be improved further. This leads towards change in practice, which Fullan (1987) refers as three-dimensional. He identified these changes in terms of material use, teaching approaches and belief as all these three together achieve an educational goal.

My Journey of Re-conceptualization

I started my journey of inquiring my own self at AKU-IED when faculty often asked us to reflect on our practices and perceptions as teachers. I realized that I dominantly had traditional approach of teaching and learning both as a teacher and as a student which include teacher-centered classroom environment and transmission mode of content delivery. With the same philosophy of teaching and learning, I started my journey as a teacher with limited resources and opportunities. Though I never considered my students as empty vessels and my self as the only source of knowledge, most of the time my mode of teaching was based on the transmission nature. This could be due to several reasons; including my own learning experience, time constraints, pressure of syllabus coverage and memorization based evaluation process. I was considered as a good teacher as all my students got good marks in the final board exams. I usually worked with “prepackaged curriculum material” (Fullan, 1987, p. 259), as a result, my students’ learning was based on rote memorization and not on self-creativity. After getting fascinating learning experience at IED, I revisited my existed beliefs and practice. I started thinking the impacts of different teaching orientations on students’ learning. In-fact I am still in the process of re-conceptualizing my beliefs about the processes like planning, teaching and assessment for future implication.

Developing Reflective Practice in the Context

After experiencing the fruit of reflective practice during M.Ed., when I rejoined my school as teacher educator, the biggest question for me was how to nurture the same practice in the context. I followed the guidance of Spilkova (2001) who considered cooperative environment a necessary element for the reflective practice. I knew that if a healthy and a supportive environment is not established, then teachers might show defensiveness instead of insight during reflective practice. With the same belief, I developed several structures and programmes based on the collaborative and friendly culture. Some of these structures are post observation conferences, micro-teaching session, co-planning and co-teaching sessions etc where teachers’ beliefs and practices on several notions are challenged in a humble and polite manner. One of such notions is the notion of assessment where challenging the teachers’ existing practice is the first step from my side and then providing them knowledge and a skill for changed practice is the second step. Many times, I feel that teachers have great tendency to revert back to their original practice. Therefore continuous and repeated opportunity of reflective practice along with necessary support was provided to teachers to help them for the accommodation that is replacing old concepts with new concepts.

Implication

Importance of re-conceptualization to teacher’s professional learning has several implications for teacher education initiatives.

• Re-conceptualization is the best teacher and therefore processes like reflection, self study and critical thinking should be the part of teacher education programme. This reflective practice helps teachers to revisit again and again their practices and to learn and unlearn about teaching learning process.
• A meaningful and lasting change cannot be attained forcefully. The initiative for change should be intrinsic and not extrinsic. However, conductive environment and trustful relation leads to teacher’s acceptance of this notion. This ultimately helps an individual to recognize their own belief and perception and guides them to ways of self-improvement.
• Certain models and structures should be in place in the system to make reflective practice as regular and continuous process. This will give a platform to teachers to develop skills and disposition towards life long learning process.
• Schools should be supportive for the change. This includes the modification in physical infra-structure, classroom setting, resource availability and mode of classroom teaching for maximum learning opportunity.

Conclusion

All above discussion proves that re-conceptualization should be a continuous process that makes us conscious about the learning process. Through this process we explore alternative approaches for new and challenging situations during educational practice. This is the approach through which we challenge our beliefs, notion, practices for better understanding and changes. As a result we develop our professional artistry and make a linkage between the theory and practice.

A Step Forward --- My Reflection

I started my community service at a very young age and served as a guide, teacher and management person in different institutions. Particularly my experience while working with ITREB gave me a sense of direction and skills to serve the community as an Al-wa’za and speaker in a voluntary capacity. I have been associated with this service for more than 20 years, and achieved a good name in the field (Alhamdullilah). I conducted many motivational and awareness raising sessions for diversified group of people on various topics. However, recently I realized that there is a shift in the attitude of audience who are now more inclined towards participatory session rather than listening to emotional speeches. Particularly youth like to have sessions where they can speak, have fun and get involve in activities. This motivated me to reflect on my current practices as a speaker and to take initiatives for the changed approach as per the demand of time. I observed some of the famous corporate trainers and tried to learn the approach they exercise in their sessions. Whatever was learned through observation of these trainers, I piloted in the yesterday’s session which I conducted with the volunteers of Gulshan-e-Noor with lots of apprehensions and question marks. Following is my reflection on that session that helped me to decide the next line of action for me.

Yesterday’s session was neither a complete success nor a complete failure for me. I tried to adapt new style and method, however, reflected on few areas that need to be improved further. I used to follow 3C policy until now that is confidence, content and connections. I found this 3C policy workable in many situations where I exercise confidence, present a good content and build connections among and between the contents and audience. My yesterday’s session reflected the need of change in the definition and scope of this 3C policy.

1. Confidence: This means an open and flexible attitude of presenter during presentation in order to invite jokes, sharing, comments and all type of fun. Confidence is shown through the presenters' movement, energy level, selection of words, sharing of support material in a right manner at the right time.
2. Content: The content should be as little as possible but predominantly based on examples, observations and situations related to current issues of the topic. Material should be simple but attractive like using acronyms, videos etc.
3. Connections: Connection should mainly be developed with the audience through their active participation. For this, creative tasks need to be developed where they do fun explicitly and learn implicitly.

I believe several personal traits lead to this approach; for example, creativity, knowledge, boldness, social nature, and energy level of presenter. How to start about it, I don’t know but what to do for these traits I know. I am working on it right now and have a firm belief to develop my skills in this area with the motive to serve community as per the demand of time. Best thing is that we have models around us who can guide us through their actions and advices.

Fun Theory to Change Behaviours

Humans are emotional beings and therefore their attitude and behaviors are highly determined by their moods, surroundings, and interest. These behavior patterns greatly influence on their work efficiency and effectiveness. In this write-up I would like to discuss the ways to develop positive attitude with reference to voluntary service in the community. I have strong belief that participation of volunteers in community development has positive impact at personal as well as community level. These honorary workers who share their time, knowledge, resources and expertise are the backbone for any community. They are the key pillars for community progress in all dimensions including economic, social, educational and other aspects of life.

It is observed that there is a growing trend of youth participation in community that brings professional expertise and attitude in the voluntary service. Though it is encouraging to see large number of youngsters sharing their time and expertise, the bigger question is how to retain their interest and involvement for a long time. It is observed that the passion and energy with which these youngsters start their services would not last long. Their on-off engagement on the other hand brings several challenges for the institutions. There could be several reasons that might lead to lowering the level of interest, energy and contribution of these young volunteers. Among many others, one reason is absence of motivational factor for them. In contrary to these volunteers, professional workers get their salary out of their work which could be a source of motivation for them to continue their efforts with same zeal and zest. How one could bring the same motivation without associating it with monitoring benefit? This is the most pertaining question in today’s fast world where survival has become more challenging and demanding. Taking out time from busy life is difficult nowadays but at the same time this is fact that no community can sacrifice their tradition of voluntary service as it is important for their survival as well.

For me motivation could be of two types. One is extrinsic motivation that comes from surrounding, like praise, rewards, salary, appreciations, and promotion. The other is intrinsic motivation which comes from inside. I feel that later has long lasting impact as compare to the former but former plays important role for the later. However, only relying on the surrounding would not serve the purpose as it is more people dependent and therefore unreliable as well as time bounded. Where as if one enjoys his/her work, and has fun and self satisfaction, will survive longer. For this, one needs to take certain steps to bring fun in day to day work. This is fact that fun is the key for human beings and makes them relax, creative and energetic. As a result, these characteristics build positive attitude for positive outcome. Following address will lead you to a video which claims that fun can change people’s attitude. Watch it and reflect how one can bring fun in his/her honorary service to enjoy it thoroughly.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lXh2n0aPyw

Secret of Happy Life

Stress, tensions, depression, problems, these are common words and are very frequently used nowadays by every one of us in our routine life. But have we thought ever, what is stress? Road accident or severe disease or bomb blast … are these stress. NO. Stress is not an incident, situation or the object but one’s attitude and response towards these situations. Let’s take an example, sunny day in summer is curse for us in Pakistan but is considered as blessing in UK. This means that one’s attitude and response towards any incident make things good or worse for him/her. I strongly believe that unless you don’t allow, no situation or person could make bad things with you. God has given control in our hands; sometimes this control is on situation (when things are in our circle of influence), otherwise this control can be exercise on our response to that concerned situation. Situation of sunny day is the best example where hot weather could be in our circle of concern but not in the circle of influence. We can’t change the sunny day, however, how we respond to that weather, what we think and what we act like, it all is in our hands.

If we understand two facts; one that taking or handling stress is in our control and second that no one in this world lives without problems. The next question arises what leads to different problems in our lives. Some problems might be the result of natural disaster like the one we are facing now due to flood in Pakistan but there are many more which are created by ourselves. Gandhi said, “You can fulfill your need but you can’t fulfill your greed”. This is true; we have a long wish list in life which increases with the passage of time. Many times we disappoint when wishes are not fulfilled or we suffer due to our wrong decisions for the fulfillment of wishes. I would like to quote His Highness Aga Khan III, he said, “If your one fourth wishes in the life gets fulfilled you are lucky. Always look people who don’t have things that you have and thank God”. In this connection, I would like you to watch this video taken from Youtube and think that are we so deprive in life more than the person in the video. Shouldn’t we thank God to bless things which are so essential for life but we take them for granted. Reflect on these ideas which watching this video.

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When I watched this video of Nick Vojick, I realized that stress is not the issue, the real problem with us is stress management. I like to share my pattern of stress management with you which I am able to practice in many of my situations. This pattern consists of few action steps and few beliefs;

Step I: Analyzing the situation / issue: whether it is in my circle of influence (can I do something to change it) or circle of concern (I can’t do any thing to change it but it is bothering me).

Step 2: Control the situation, if it is in my circle of influence. For this, I jot down all possible ways and then try out each possibility based on the priority. But I believe that if all possibilities don’t work, there are other possibilities which will work, but I haven’t explored those yet. So I keep on thinking and trying.

Step 3: If the situation is not in my influence but only the concern, I try to adapt positive attitude towards it. Because if I would do otherwise, I will allow the situation to hurt me more.

Step 4: With all above steps, I always belief that I have one supreme authority who knows everything better than me and will do better for me. Trusting and praying to God gives me strength and feeling that I am not alone in this effort. God always supports in the positive decisions, decisions which are intended for betterment of everybody and are in accordance to natural ethics.

The above steps help me to cope up with the day to day issues I face in my life. Robert Schuler in his book “tough time never lasts but tough people do” gives many such examples where individuals overcome their crises and restarted their lives positively.

Considering the current situation in Pakistan where people face multiple problems including economic, security, social, financial, health etc. we need to educate people to manage stress successfully. Such soft skills should be the part of school curriculum and should be taught to the youth of country through variety of forums like youth clubs, schools, home etc. Nowadays people talk about revolution, I belief the first step is to bring change in oneself, in our attitude, thinking and approach towards problems. This can lead to collective effort as a nation to face the challenge positively and effectively for a better solution.

Art of Parenting

Parenting is an art and each one of us should know it before we become parents. Why is it so crucial? What is its significance in one's life? How can be I a good mother? These are some of the questions that continuously helping me to reflect my own practices and beliefs as mother. You can find number of parents around you who appreciate their child on their obedience and following instructions, but my question to them is, are we dealing with human beings or machines? Do we want to make our child as leader or the follower? Why are we so emphasizing on their obedience and in return killing their creativity and empowerment? And then when they grow old, we expect them to take major decisions of their lives intelligently and independently. It is like you don't educate a person and ask him / her to act like a renowned scientist. I intensely feel the importance of this topic for the development of nation in general and community in particular. This write-up is therefore to invite every reader for their critical reflection and thoughts on my sharing based on my learning through readings, observations and experiences.

There is no doubt that I love my daughter very much like all mothers but some times I reflect that my own principles and wishes dominate my love. This is when I impose things on her (definitely with good intension as per my view) rather than accepting her individuality. I as a parent want to see my child excelling in every field; she must be healthy, intelligent, social, morally developed etc etc besides realizing that being an adult I myself is even not so perfect. Due to this long wish list, I sometimes suppress her individuality through my rigid decisions and rules. Take an example, I ask my daughter to complete the meal that I cook for her. For this I use different weapons both emotional and psychological like bribing, praising, scolding. I neglect other conditions like her mood, liking / disliking of that particular food, state of hunger and digestion. On the other side MY RULE IS RULE that needs to be followed at any cost. This sometimes results in her vomiting that creates problem for both of us. This seems a small issue but it can serve as the best example of cruelty. No doubt I do that practice with good intentions to make her healthy and fit but the approach I used is very unhealthy and leads to worse decision and worst outcome. There are many other examples in daily routine where I feel that my praise and gifts make her dependent of getting social acceptance and material benefits rather than satisfaction on her own decisions and accomplishments.

I was reading a book "kids are worth it!" by Mrs. Barbara Coloroso who explained three different types of parenting. According to her, families have mini-cultures that develop language, attitude and behaviors of individuals. These three types of families are;

1. Brick-Wall Family: Very rigid parenting where rule is from parents and child has to abide it. Otherwise child gets punishment or humiliation. Parents enforce their rules rigidly and teach their child what to think and not how to think.

2. Jellyfish Family: These are very flexible family with no recognizable disciplines, rules and norms. Parents go with their children’s decisions all the time and do not contribute their roles. They are least bother what their children are doing as they give them complete freedom regardless of its implications

3. Backbone family: It lies between the above two extreme types where parents give necessary support and structure along with the democracy and authority to child. Children were taught how to think. They always get love, hugs and smiles from family members and feel that this love is not only subject to abiding the rules.

This book provides me several points to think and reflect on my perceptions and practices. I realized that besides controlling, there are other ways to make children disciplined. This is when you accept their ownership and authority to their lives as responsible citizen. Author says that other than life threatening situations where you need to be rigid in your decisions, otherwise child should feel ownership on their decision. There is no need to give them mini lectures but to model good practices by you, no need to tell them what is right or which colour should s/he wear but let them decide good for them. Let them take their decisions and learn through their mistakes. The impact of learning will be more when they think themselves rather than thinking through their parents' minds.

I believe, as a parent, self reflection is the first step but bringing this learning into practice is second and the challenging one. But I feel I, you and we all CAN do it because we all love our children VERY MUCH