KERTAS KERJA DALAMAN

Mentoring Professional Education Development

Asst. Prof. Dr. Hanipah Hussin Deputy Dean Academic, Center for Academic Services Universiti Teknikal Malaysia Melaka, (UTeM) Jalan Hang Tuah Jaya. Ayer Keroh. 75450.Melaka Mentoring in Paradigm shift From educational point of view, professional development in education always move from learning to be and during learning, mentoring is a very crucial part. If one enter the phase of developing their career to be professional the first thing that involve is paradigm shift. Paradigm means a way of thinking, while shift is a process of movement. Paradigm shift is a process of activates new ideas in order to change old one so that new thought enabling teachers to gain new understanding. New understanding of image or conception will be able to shift one from unknown to well known, from discover to create. This process involve mentor that geared learning movement. Thinking cant be measured until it was conveyed into a form of writing or oral transcription. In order to make thinking and the paradigm shift among teachers explicitly impact, teachers need kind of tool to transfer their thought into an action behavioral. The tools are reflective thinking and reflective writing whereas a format of reflective thinking and writing method is to help teacher understand a process of writing ideas and convey it in a differences issue or problem. Hanipah Hussin (1999:15) claimed that teacher needs coach to used reflection as a tool and the school administration system needs to scaffold the reflective practice among teachers. After teacher gained a skill and competence to use of reflective writing then teacher can shift their thought into a form of action. The thought and action have to be complimented implement using another processes that we known as professional development. Some questions can help teacher to reflect effectively.

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1) 2) 3) 4) 5) 6)

What is the interesting event that I would like to write about? How do I feel about the event? How do I rational the reason why it was happened How do I gain a new understanding from this experience What can I suggest some alternative action? What action could I take immediately

Mentoring in Action Research in Education The effective development of reflective teachers is largely dependent on the behaviour of teacher educators. Thus the professional development of teachers educators is the focus for development country. Thus, it was encouraging to note that in Sharifah Bees (1997) observations of the Staff Development Programs in two teacher education colleges, teamwork was very much appreciated. Therefore, other than team teaching that is presently in practice, there should be more provision to enable teacher educators to work together in pairs or in small teams. Discussion on planing, implementation, evaluating, reflecting and planing together again in

teaching subject matter is one of the enjoyment moment in teachers life . This arrangement is not only to facilitate peer observations and to allow the teacher educator to practice new skills but also to accord them opportunities to discuss and share their observations reflectively. The example note below show that new teacher do not have knowledge and skill to reflect. The school became the host for the under-11 football competition (SouthEast Zone level). I was elected as a member of the committee manning the information desk. Upon instructions from the school authority, we, the trainee teachers had to sell food, to increase the revenue for the student charity fund(M.Majaid Journal Week 8, 30/8/95).

After the format of reflection had enhance for several weeks , the same student teachers had come out with a new paradigm shift on that particular day, I found that the students were very enthusiastic in answering the questions. The PKBS exams are important for the students, as students would be

Kertas Kerja di Bentang dalam Seminar Pelapis Counselor-02 ,Meridian Melaka.

streamed into classes according to the results they obtain in this exam, for the upcoming school session. The students answers showed me that they could grasp most of the skills that I had been imparting to them. In my opinion, the students were well prepared for the exams. Only a handful of them were weak in their studies and took little interest in the PKBS. However, I realized that a bigger responsibility awaits me when I enter the real school life. Students can be seen as customers of a teacher, who should be treated well so that the lessons passed on to them, are well received. I will further upgrade my teaching standard to create a more effective teaching method, so that even the weaker and average students can compete with the smarter ones. I will try to guide my students in the best way possible to help mould them into useful citizens in the future (M. Majid Journal Week 16, 4/10/96). In connection to the above, Hanipah Hussin, (1999) found that Malaysian Teachers College Staff Development Programs have attempted to provide teacher educators with opportunities to develop trusting collegial relationships in which they could help one another. This has been achieved by fostering reflection about practice, in the production of teaching learning materials, and addressing common problems more effectively. The effectiveness of teacher educators who are involved in these Staff Development Programs can be assessed through the teachers progress and development during practicum supervision in schools. The aim of improving schooling in Malaysia drove the Teacher Education Division and the Teacher Education Colleges to embark on reflective practice in the early 1995. According to Kamalia, (1999:8), teachers in Malaysia should be given a greater opportunity to take part in decision making, especially when the issue is about teachers and their responsibility for a decision to be implemented. Such opportunities for professional growth would improve the competence of teachers. Thus a future strategy to develop teamwork and coaching in reflective practice in teacher education is the use of collaborative action research in schools and colleges. This book seeks to provide a role model for teacher educators and lecturer in teachers training colleges and universities, headteachers, NPQH program, teachers in

Kertas Kerja di Bentang dalam Seminar Pelapis Counselor-02 ,Meridian Melaka.

school, student teachers, education district officers in Malaysia. I purposely develop such book like this, provided procedures and plan for Malaysian teachers and educators from other countries. It is hoped that other teacher educators may be able to see the value of reflective practice and action research in their own supervisory practice. Mentoring is a proses of developing confidence. For that reason as a mentor, always use some provocative questions. 1 2 3 4 5 6 What is the interesting event that I would like to write about? How do I feel about the event/situation? How do I rational the reason why it was happened How do I gain a new understanding from this experience? Can I suggest some alternatives action? What action could I take immediately?

Reflective practice and action research are useful for dealing with classroom problems. According to Hanipah (1999: 216) during the process of reflective practice and action research, the educator and teachers learn together to provide with the most appropriate activities in order to ensure the continuation of each teachers journey towards expertise. The Headteachers advised to promote reflective writing together with members from supporting staffs to establish a systematic, orderly procedure for exploring problems and finding possible actions to eliminate problems or at least to make the entire school more manageable. Lecturer Subject Matter as aMentor Teacher education in Malaysia has placed emphasis not only on the content of teaching knowledge of student teachers but also on their personal development, which encompasses moral growth and knowledge of self as teacher. According to Kim (1994:50) and Hanipah (1999), a high caliber new teacher is one who possesses teacher knowledge, skills, positive values and ethics. Their teacher belief system must base on religious thought. God is source of knowledge. Their thought must give a positive impact to their self-as teacher and self as social leader. Teacher and teacher educator have to be a researcher and contribute new knowledge to the society.

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A reflective approach by teacher educators in their clinical supervision (Wallace, 1991) may contribute to the development of these aspirations. It is widely acknowledged that student teachers often have less experiences to draw from in making sense of teaching experience (Calderhead, 1989). Feiman-Nemser and Buchmann (1987:272) argued that educators must be actively present in student teaching to give prospective teachers a concrete sense of pedagogical thinking and acting. Short (1993) affirms that, for college teachers, action research practice gives teachers involved the opportunity to take a reflective stance on their own teaching. This stance helps a systematic inquiry about their own method of teaching. As a lecturer in pedagogy and a teachers college supervisor, the researcher was concerned to excel and to live up to the expectations of the student teaching program at Temenggong Ibrahim Teacher Training College, Johor, Malaysia. This expectation included notions of a more critical and democratic approach to supervision. It was an approach that related to Gores (1991:255) portrayal of a critical orientation to supervision and with Wallaces (1991: 57) concept of a reflective approach in supervision. The researcher believes that a reflective approach in supervision must include a form of critical reflection in which every reflective teacher or teacher educator is aware of the broad socio-political context in which schooling and teacher education takes place (Hatton and Smith, 1995). Thus teacher educators in teachers colleges in Malaysia should be aware of issues such as critical reflection, coaching in reflective practice, reflective writing as well as be concerned with the content of student teachers teaching knowledge growth over time. This evidence in leaning through experiences demonstrated the effort of a teacher educator who researched her own group of student teachers in seven primary schools in Malaysia. Like the doctoral students in Feldmans (1996) study, she found that she struggled with her new roles. Her role was largely undefined and tentative, and both the researcher and her cohort student teacher experienced and identified issues of power, voice and reflective practice.

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Data investigation found that the learning cycles through the second order action research method were useful in enhancing being reflective to both party (student teachers and educator). The researcher learned how to collaborate with cohort student teachers, cooperating teachers and subject matter lecturers to work on important and practical issues during this action research project. In the processes of doing action research, the researcher gained new knowledge, skills, insight and a sense of achievement. The researcher allowed her ideas and notions to be discussed and debated. She allowed time to sit down with student teachers after a lesson to share all of the perspectives on the lesson and to read the reflective journals written by student teachers. She worked together with cooperating teachers in helping and coaching student teachers. She entered into a critical dialogue with her peers. She carefully shared some of her experiences, thoughts and feelings before asking her student teachers to reveal aspects of their experiences. Writing the weekly journal was a good example of modeling reflective practice to the student teachers (Loughran, 1996). From the researchers experiences this current study suggests that teacher educators should complete similar tasks that he/she asks their student teachers to complete. The researcher as educator must be willing (Dewey, 1933) to work with rather than over the student teachers (Gore, 1991: 257). As a teacher educator and the researcher in the current study, the researcher constantly asked herself questions such as the following: Do I really believe in these practices of inquiry-oriented teacher education? Why dont I use a reflective journal regularly in my own teaching? If I argue that I do not have time, can I blame student teachers for not adopting them as a regular exercise for their teaching? The researcher always assumed she had two selves and dialogued with herself. One self questions and another one answers in order to see what was not obvious. One question led to another question with many questions remaining unanswered. Thus this current study suggested, individual action research can be extended to collaborative action research. Everybody involved in the action research contributes ideas and supports each other and, learning occurs collaboratively. By this process,

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reflective practice could take place in the whole system in schools and in colleges. These assertions are not to suggest that teacher educators must do the entire task that they ask their students to do. However, the researcher highly values action research as a tool in promoting reflective teaching. Teacher educators will learn from their own action research and, in so doing, will help student teachers learn from and appreciate such practices. In this study, the researcher not only gathered data but also concentrated more on developing an understanding about the nature of the data collected. The data belongs to both the researcher and the student teachers and was used to improve and change the situation in classroom practice over time. The following journal extract illustrates the researchers concern to focus on changing classroom practice: Siti Ain wrote sincerely about her reaction to her Mathematics lesson. She was worried that her Mathematics lesson might not have been challenging enough for the Year Three students. Maybe I could have begun with asking them about yesterdays lesson to make them interested in todays lesson. Probably some of them can answer some problems if I ask. I really want them to know that my topic today was not a new one. I asked her some questions to focus on that particular issue and always keep my eyes on her journal (just to show we are focussing on this issue and I was interested to know more about what she wrote). Why do you think asking about the previous lesson could help you to make students interested in today lesson? How do you present the questions to the class? If asking questions was still not effective in this context, what else might you do to make them learn from you? She said I dont know what is really the best method for them. I just dont know if it was challenging! I just wrote what I think it best to do next. I agreed with her, because I believe there are no definite answers in teaching. Siti Ain continued on to explain those pupils attitude towards Mathematics and its relation to the classroom environment. I told her that might be the reason for what happened in her classroom. The first thing was to bring her back to see what she wrote in her journal, examined her constraint and think how to solve the problem How to make her Mathematics

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lesson more challenging? I continued and asked her to show me what yesterdays lesson looked like and how she could plan some interesting lessons from yesterdays lesson, and create some questions for tomorrows lesson. We had not really finished when she had to change dress for Physical Education lesson. We must continue this discussion after she finishes her P.E lesson. (Journal Week 7 2/8/96)

The above excerpt shows that theorizing about the nature and purpose of practice was not a separate activity from reflecting about how to proceed competently with it. The latter must involve theorizing about the practical aims and principles, which shape the practice. This understanding of the relationship between the theory and the practice of action research was exemplified in the way the researcher resolved her dilemma about how to begin the reflective journal writing during Practicum 2. It led to a considerable shift in her understanding of being a coach. The cyclical nature of action research allowed the researcher to test and retest activities over a period of time. Finally, every experience in coaching and discussion among this cohort generated a range of short-term and long-term strategies to help translate theory into practice. The researcher tried to clarify the jumble of incidents which took place, or which she constructed, throughout the Practicum 2. The processes were not clear or tidy but the researcher tried to follow weekly cycles as a general plan. It was not her aim to follow the cycles strictly because it is not possible. Rather, the researcher referred to main incidents or critical incidents in order to trace the student teachers development of critical reflection in their reflective writing in this current study. The developmental approach in this study suggested that student teachers needed to be coached so that they could use subsequent cycles in action research as a second chance to improve or to plan one step further. The researcher also thought about how student teachers in primary schools in Malaysia could undertake the reasoning processes under stressful conditions.

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First, student teachers were expected to differentiate their own critical incident and incorporated everything that they had discovered through their own analysis during reflective writing. Secondly, student teachers were expected to write their reflections in the record book that enabled it to be read and shared by everyone in school. This finding, that identifying a focus for action research can be difficult for student teachers in that there are so many aspects of their teaching that they would like to develop and change is supported by Woods research (1988). This study taught the researcher and student teachers to value time for reflection. Too often, the pace of classroom and campus activity does not allow teachers or students to pause and look at both the present and the future. Teacher educators and student teachers require this kind of time, and time is one of the major challenges for teacher researchers in both schools and colleges. Through reflection with our student teachers and our colleagues we can come to a collective understanding and build a theory to guide our shared inquiries. This is true for groups of student learners as well (Patterson, 1996). The researcher herself realized that there was insufficient time even for her to be as thorough as she would have liked with the action research process! Again this current study acknowledged that student teachers, cooperating teachers, subject matter lecturers are always stretched to their limits. What is happening in school or college is always a reflection of the institutional, social and political value given to the teaching profession and teacher education. Teacher educators from college must create network systems so that student teachers, cooperating teachers and subject matter lecturers can quickly develop a level of trust and mutual respect to allow them to discuss critically with each other, and give emotional and intellectual support. The researcher believes that the main advantage of doing action research as a teacher educator was that it forced her to focus and to write and to articulate, it forced the researcher to allocate the time to think, to reflect systematically about issues that concerned her. The same processes were applied for all the sixteen student teachers that were involved in this current study. This study suggests that teacher educators in college need to be leaders in action research and try to expose themselves, student

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teachers and teachers in reflective practice. This is acknowledged by the Malaysian Teacher Education Division as a strategic tool for professional development (Hanipah, 1998; Rajendran, 1998; Sharifah Bee, 1997; Khadijah, 1995; Rosalena, 1995; and Siti Hawa, 1995). In summary, the process of developing reflective practice through action research in a school setting was successful. The researcher realized that the practice of action research was more important than goal setting. What was more important to the student teachers was the process of getting meaning from what they had done. As Schon (1987:17)) argues, student teachers cannot be taught what they need to know, but can be coached. Thus, Schon says: ...He has to see on his own behalf and in his own way the relations between means and method employed and results achieved. Nobody else can see for him, and he cant see just by being told, although the right kind of telling may guide his seeing and thus help him see what he needs to see The study experience suggested that the Malaysian public education system staggers under the pressure of great demand and may not be democratic enough to recognize and acknowledge reflective thinking among teachers and educators. The current study suggests that it is possible to educate the young generation of teachers through classroom reflection activity, such as to analyze what, why and how an incident happened. As young researchers, the researcher is ready to accept the challenge and the responsibility of learning right now and in the future.

Kertas Kerja di Bentang dalam Seminar Pelapis Counselor-02 ,Meridian Melaka.

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