People with Disabilities and the Formation of the Basic Education Teacher: A Study of Brazilian Reality

Abstract

Teachers' professional development has the power to improve teaching quality and student learning, and depends highly in teachers' self-motivation. This qualitative study aim to analyze the professional development processes of excellent teachers and the manifestation of their excellence in work. The paper describes the excellent teachers' professional development processes along four phases in their career: preservice training, teacher induction, ongoing professional development, and future development. Within each phase of teacher's career, different external and internal factors found to facilitate the development of their excellence. Their professional excellence manifests in four hierarchical levels of influence: the students, the school, the district, and the community. Understanding the professional development processes of excellent teachers can assist to broaden understanding of the factors that facilitate teacher excellence, to promote teacher's growth and teaching quality. It can help decision-makers in identifying teachers who show promise towards excellence and adjust the incentives to promote their excellence.

Teachers’ Use of Education Dashboards and Professional Growth

“…Consequently, there is a plethora of models that describe teachers' professional development. They do not necessarily consider it as a linear, step-wise experience, but rather as an ongoing, dynamic, multicontextual endeavor that involves multiple circles in which the teacher belongs (e.g., school, professional communities, and home; Ferreira, Ryan, & Tilbury, 2007;Grossi, Oliveira, Barbosa, & Oliveira, 2016;Yurtseven Avci & O'Dwyer, 2016). In recent years, it is agreed, therefore, that teachers' professional development presents a continuum of life-long learning throughout a professional teaching career (Collinson et al, 2009); moreover, it is closely linked to both their professional and personal identity and exists not only as part of institutional training (Nabhani & Bahous, 2010).…”