Teacher Education and Teacher Quality

 

Introduction

One of the areas contributing to national development is education, which ensures the development of functional human resources. The institution of strong educational structures leads to the formation of a society inhabited by enlightened people, which can lead to positive economic progress and social change. Positive social change and the associated economic growth are achieved when people apply the skills they learn in school. Learning these skills helps one person, all of us “teachers”. For this reason, countries striving for economic and social development should not ignore teachers and their role in national development.

 

Teachers are a major contributor to student success in learning. The performance of teachers usually determines not only the quality of education, but also the overall performance of the students they teach. Thus, teachers themselves must receive the best education so that they can help teach students in the best possible way. It is known that the quality of teachers and quality teaching are among the most important factors in determining the learning and social and educational development of students. Quality teaching will go a long way towards ensuring that teachers are of very high quality so that they can manage classrooms properly and facilitate learning. This is why the quality of teachers continues to be a concern even in countries where students consistently score high on international exams, such as in Mathematics and Science (TIMSS). In such countries, the popularity of teacher education is likely because it has positive student achievement.

 

The structure of teacher education is changing in response to the discovery of productive teachers in almost all countries who understand the current needs of learners or the requirements of teachers. These changes aim to ensure that sometimes quality teachers are prepared and sometimes there are no teachers in the classroom. In the United States, the promotion of high quality teachers has been a matter of controversy, and over the past decade has largely been done through the methods outlined in the No Child Left Behind Act (Accelerated California Teachers, 2015). Even in Japan and other eastern countries, where there are more teachers than necessary and structures have been created to train and hire high-quality teachers, issues related to teachers and the quality of teaching remain a concern) Belongs to Therefore, teacher education is nowhere to be seen as a joke ... This article is divided into two parts. The teacher education system in Ghana is discussed first, and the second part examines some of the factors that determine the quality of teaching.

 

Teacher Education

Ghana is making a concerted effort to create quality teachers for its core classrooms. As pointed out by Ben (2006), the goal of teacher training in Ghana is to provide a complete teacher training program through the provision of initial teacher training and continuing education programs that will produce competent teachers, which will affect teaching efficiency and help improve learning in schools. Ghana's Primary Teacher Education Program for Basic School Teachers was offered only in Colleges of Education (COE), until recently the University of Education, Cape Coast University and central universities did not enroll in colleges and other higher education institutions. The programs offered by other higher education institutions are that when universities offer their students certificates, tests and certifications, the College of Education offers certificates of study and examinations at Cape Coast University through the Institute of Education. The curricula offered by these institutions are an attempt to provide many qualified teachers to teach in schools. The National Accreditation Board recognizes teacher training programs for quality assurance.

The National Accreditation Council recognizes teacher education programs based on the structure and content of courses offered by the institute. Therefore, courses offered by different institutions differ in content and structure. For example, the course content of the Institute of Education, the curriculum structure of the Cape Coast University, and the Center for Rural Education are slightly different from the content of the University of Cape Coast, and neither of these two programs are COE compliant, although they are three years old. ) after training. The DBE and the four-year diploma in primary education (UTDBE) programs run by the Council of Europe are only similar but not identical. The same can be said for the two-year postgraduate education in basic education, the University of Cape Coast, the University of Education, the University of Winneb, and the four-year undergraduate programs run by other universities and university colleges. Although the same foods actually appeal to the same customers, the foods are prepared in different ways.

 

It is through these numerous programs that teachers are prepared for mainstream schools - from kindergarten to upper secondary school. Alternative pathways or programs through which teachers are trained are good in situations where there are not enough teachers and more teachers need to be trained in a very short period of time. A typical example is the UTDBE program mentioned above, designed to train lay teachers in professional skills. But there is a tendency to incorporate quality into these efforts in order to graduate more teachers due to the lack of teachers.

 

As Xiaoxia, Heeju, Nicci, and Stone (2010) have noted, the factors that contribute to teacher education and teacher retention are varied and complex, but one factor that worries teachers is the alternate pathway that teacher training takes. The main goal of many paths is to attract teachers to the teaching profession. This has reduced the necessary teacher training that would-be teachers need before becoming a homeroom teacher. According to Xiaoxia, Heeju, Nicci and Stone (2010), those who prefer alternative routes such as Teach for America (TFA) defend their alternative routes by saying that even if students go through a short pre-training period, students should be academically gifted and therefore able to learn a lot in a short period of time. Others argue that in areas such as English, science and mathematics, where there is usually a shortage of teachers, there should be alternative opportunities for good candidates studying English, mathematics and science at the undergraduate level. None of these arguments for alternative paths are appropriate for alternative teacher training programs in Ghana, where academically gifted students study for reasons I might have encountered.

 

When the goal is simply to fill vacant classrooms, teacher training is somehow relegated to the background. At the selection level, alternative routes reduce the need for admission to teacher education programs. When, for example, the second batch of UTDBE students was admitted, I can confidently say that the entry requirements to CoE were not met. It was emphasized that the applicant must be a non-professional primary school teacher employed by the Ghana Education Service and that the applicant has a certificate above the Basic Education Certificate Exam. The score received was irrelevant. If this route had not been chosen, there would have been no trained students in COE who were not originally eligible for admission to the regular DBE program. However, this reduces the quality and reduces the effect.

 

I realized that even in the regular DBE programs, quite recently, I have to say that COEs in particular do not attract candidates with very high scores. As I have now learned, this has a huge impact on both the quality of teachers and their effectiveness. The fact is that teacher training programs in Ghana are not considered prestigious, and therefore applicants with higher grades do not choose educational programs. Thus, the majority of teachers who apply for teacher education programs have relatively low grades. When the DBE COE admission requirements for the 2016/2017 school year were published, I noticed that the minimum entry score for West African High School candidates had been downgraded from C6 to D8. This decline in standard can only be attributed to the efforts of the Council of Europe to attract more candidates. Universities have also lowered the thresholds for educational programs to attract more applicants. Universities, according to Levin (2006), view their teacher training programs as a cash cow, so to speak. His desire to make money is forcing him to lower his school admission standards, as the COE did to increase his enrollment. The fact is that admission standards at the international level have been lowered in order to achieve the goal of increasing the number of students. This weak recruitment practice or declining standards is a major challenge for teacher education.

 

Japanese teachers have been able to make education and teaching iconic and attract high-class students. It can be argued that in Japan, the supply of teachers far exceeds the demand, and therefore the authorities are not under any pressure to appoint teachers. If they can all select a higher grade student in teacher training programs, then their system will not suffer. For them, issues related to the selection of teachers are more important than issues related to recruitment. However, recruitment issues are widespread in Western and African countries. This is because the demand for teachers is very high due to the supply. Countries in the West and Africa are experiencing difficulties in recruiting teachers because teachers and the teaching profession are not highly respected. Therefore, teacher training programs do not attract students with very good grades. It is worth noting that not only does the recruitment process determine whether teacher education will be prestigious or not, but recruiting candidates with higher grades ensures that post-training teachers are needed for effective learning. Two characteristics will be demonstrated - quality and efficiency. Teacher education can be effective if the teaching profession is highly respected and therefore can attract the best candidates. Otherwise, teacher education programs may not fully achieve their goal, regardless of the incentives to attract applicants and regardless of the measures that will be taken to improve teacher education.

Strengthening teacher training requires teacher training programs to ensure good learning early in teacher training and to provide and support for the first few years after teachers are hired. This is why Lumpe (2007) supports the idea that pre-teacher training programs should ensure that teachers have a good understanding of effective teaching strategies. Therefore, methodology classes should focus on effective teaching strategies. Regardless of the curriculum, this program should be structured in such a way that learners can gain knowledge of pedagogy in addition to knowledge of the subject. They should also gain adequate hands-on classroom experience, such as on-campus and off-campus instructional exercises. Regardless of whether there is a need to fill classroom vacancies due to the employment of a taller teacher that many countries face, the goal of teacher training programs should be to create a quality and effective teacher, not just fill vacant positions.

 

Conclusion on teacher qualifications

The quality of the teacher has a huge impact on student learning. Any teacher will agree that teacher quality is central to educational reform. Pragula, Agam, and Solman (2007) described teacher quality as an important school factor that significantly influences student learning. Quality teachers have a positive effect on student achievement. Where students have quality and effective teachers, students tend to be ineffective teachers, while ineffective teachers become less effective. As for the classroom teacher, there is a continuous process of self-assessment of the teacher's quality, so that professional development and self-renewal take place to improve teaching. For a teacher-teacher, an effective or quality teacher is one who has a good subject and pedagogical knowledge that he/she can create.

 

Excellent teachers have many exemplary qualities. They have the skills, subject matter, and pedagogy to reach every child. They help equip their students with the knowledge and a broad outlook to make informed and independent decisions. There will be three determinants of teacher quality. They; Educational knowledge, subject knowledge, and experience.

Know the medical content

Trainees in each profession receive some form of education that gives them understanding and prepares them for further work. This teacher is called educational knowledge or educational knowledge. Educational content can be characterized as knowledge, teachers use knowledge in organizing classes, distributing materials to manage the students assigned to them. Typically, educational knowledge is knowledge that a teacher uses to facilitate student learning. Knowledge of the content of education is presented in two main forms - knowledge of teachers' prejudices of students and knowledge of teachers of teaching methods. Students come to class with a lot of biases that they learn. Preliminary concepts may or may not correspond to actual content. Teachers need to have a good understanding of both types of antecedent perceptions to help students, replace incompatible previous concepts, or build on sequential antecedents to achieve meaningful learning. Teachers should have a repository of teaching methods to facilitate student learning. When methods are misapplied or students fail to learn. In fact, when one of the two is weak, the teacher becomes tough, because that teacher will not be able to fulfill his duties in the case he chooses. As a result, academic material is emphasized during teacher training.

Teachers gain knowledge of the teaching material from a variety of sources. Friedrichsen, Abel, Pareha, Brown, Lankford and Volkmann (2009) identified three possible sources of knowledge for educational content. They listed professional development programs, teaching experience and, ultimately, teachers' own learning experiences as sources. During training in teacher education programs, teachers are provided with various assistance in acquiring educational knowledge. For example, during practice, they learn to hone their educational skills. Teacher education programs and other professional development programs provide teachers with the opportunity to conduct seminars, lectures, work closely with colleagues and acquire knowledge of educational content in teaching practice. Then their experiences in the classroom as they teach students to understand which methodology works best in specific situations. The latter source is usually ignored. This indicates that the teacher's professional knowledge begins to develop long before the teacher enters teacher education. This means that teachers greatly influence the professional knowledge and beliefs of future teachers. This type of learning is usually ignored by teachers at all levels because it is unintentional and informal.

 

Knowledge of the content of education can be obtained in formal and informal ways. Formal learning opportunities are shaped by formal learning tools of educational content developed by institutions based on the learning objectives required for formal certification. In formal teaching, students have a clear understanding of the purpose of acquiring academic skills. On the other hand, informal learning is not intentional. This happens by chance and therefore can be considered a “side effect”. As described by Kleckman et al (2012), it has no goal in relation to learning outcomes and is largely relevant. This is often referred to as learning by doing. There are informal but deliberate learning environments. This occurs in situations such as teaching, mentoring, and targeted practice in groups of specific skills or tools. Verkin (2010) described learning as informal, but deliberate, informal learning. Unlike formal education, non-formal education does not take place in educational institutions and does not require certification. What educational content knowledge

 

Knowledge of educational content is used to bridge the gap between knowledge of content and actual learning. Bridging the gap ensures that the discussion of the content is relevant to learning and the discussion is focused on the content itself. Thus, teachers should pay attention to knowledge about the content of education. Teachers who have good knowledge and use of the curriculum content have good control over classroom management and assessment, knowledge of learning processes, teaching methods, and personal characteristics (Harr, Eyckler, & Renkl, 2014). Such teachers can create an environment that facilitates learning and is also capable of introducing or facilitating the learning of concepts for lazy students. They can make learning easier for students, which is why teachers with high academic knowledge can be classified as quality teachers. It is worth noting that it is not only knowledge of the content of education that makes good teachers. A teacher will not be good if he has good academic knowledge, but lacks knowledge of the subject.

Experience

Experience is one of the factors influencing teacher salaries, global change (Hanushekhar and Rivkin, 2006). The fact that the wage gap is based on the number of years the teacher has given suggests that employers believe that the teacher's experience makes him / her a better teacher and that such a teacher should be motivated to keep working. However, some studies, such as Hanusheikh (2011), suggest that experience positively affects teacher quality in the first few years, and that experience gained after five years would no longer positively influence teacher performance. Ha, common sense tells us who he is, does things better and with ease over a long period of time. So the experience will continue to bear fruit because more experienced teachers tend to learn more about the subject they teach, think and behave appropriately in class, and be more positive towards their students.

 

Teachers who have spent more years teaching tend to feel confident in their skills in using teaching and assessment tools. These teachers are able to reach even the hardest-to-reach students in their classrooms. They are more confident in their ability to monitor the classroom and prevent incidents that impede teaching and learning. His experience makes him more patient and tolerant than his colleague with many years of experience. Aspiring teachers gradually acquire and develop the teaching and classroom management skills necessary to become effective teachers. They spend time educating themselves - trying to get started fully. Teachers who have spent more years teaching have amassed a wealth of knowledge that could make teachers less experienced. A teacher's sense of effectiveness is usually associated with good behavior, behavior, and interaction with their students. This has already been achieved by an experienced teacher. This explains why more experienced teachers are usually more effective than beginners.

 

Another reason that more experienced teachers tend to be better teachers than their inexperienced peers is that experienced teachers have received additional training and, therefore, have acquired additional teaching skills to be effective through direct experience. Teacher training usually does not end with initial teacher training. After graduation, teachers participate in capacity building workshops, trainings and conferences. This gives teachers the opportunity to explore new teaching methods as well as explore their memories. Most of these seminars, workshops and conferences are part of the teacher's knowledge repository. The second advantage of experienced teachers is that they face a wide variety of circumstances in order to develop the skills necessary to be effective teachers through additional direct and sometimes indirect experience. That is, he faced difficult situations that gave him the opportunity to develop his skills. Whether they were able to overcome these difficult conditions or not did not matter. When teachers face difficult situations in their classrooms, they learn from them. If teachers are able to cope with difficult situations, they know how to resolve such situations at the next meeting, otherwise their reflections and suggestions from co-teachers on how to approach them in the same or similar situations. They are more likely to clash with current and capable models. More experienced teachers are more likely to demonstrate better self-efficacy in most areas as they have received the necessary classroom management and teaching skills from their peers. Teachers with many years of active service are likely to be classified as qualified teachers because they have learned from in-service education, capacity building workshops and workshops, and their interactions with other teachers. In their classes.

Output

Teacher education aims to provide teacher education programs for apprentice teachers through early teacher training and on-the-job training to practice teachers to prepare knowledgeable and committed teachers for effective teaching and learning. To fulfill this mission, teacher training programs have been established. These programs differ from country to country. Even within the same country, there may be different teacher training programs for the same certificate. These alternative programs are designed specifically for teacher shortages, and efforts are made to train large numbers of teachers at the same time. These electives reduce the need for teacher certification, making them unable to become teachers under normal circumstances. This creates serious problems. Because large numbers of teachers are required over a short period, their preparation is somewhat accelerated, resulting in what is commonly referred to as undervalued teachers — teachers of poor quality. Applicants who have not passed admission according to their chosen program come to teach only because they have nowhere else to go. Such applicants are ultimately not intended for teaching. Accelerating early teacher training actually harms the mission for which the initial teacher training institutions were created. This is due to the fact that the teacher received as a result of such training is usually not of high quality.

 

Teacher training directly affects student achievement. The most important school factor for student success is a well-trained teacher. A well-trained teacher is one who has completed a strong teacher training program. Therefore, teachers need to make the necessary improvements in teacher training. To strengthen teacher training, teacher training programs must provide strong initial teacher training and support new teachers until they are included in the curriculum. Pre-teacher education should emphasize the acquisition of effective pedagogical strategies. This methodology can be applied in classrooms and inappropriate field settings. Students who have quality teachers do well, while ineffective teachers have diminishing returns, so having quality teachers in classrooms has a positive effect on student achievement.

 

Knowledge of the content of education, knowledge of the subject and experience determine the quality of the teacher. Teachers make content available to students using knowledge of educational content. There are two broad areas of knowledge in knowledge about educational content: teachers 'subjective biases about learners and teachers' knowledge of learning strategies. What makes academic content knowledge is that content integrates content knowledge and teaching practice, ensuring that content discussion is relevant and helping students focus on content and retain content. The teacher's job is to facilitate the learning of the subject by the students. The teacher can help students learn. Teachers who have misinformation or a narrow understanding of the subject harm students by imparting to them the same false or superficial knowledge of the subject. The last of the three factors that determine the quality of teachers is experience. Teachers who have worked for more years receive additional and more specialized training by attending seminars, conferences and trainings, as well as on-the-job training, and therefore have a better understanding of their work. They can also meet and solve many difficult situations in their class and therefore know exactly what to do in a given situation.