The Teacher Accreditation Conference being held in New Delhi as part of a week-long series of events around school education began on 2 December at with participants from all over the country enthusiastically contributing through various sessions in the field of action research not only in English but education system as a whole.
The programme began with a welcome note from Susan Douglas who chaired the conference and briefed the participants on the context of this event. This was the first time that an electronically operated voting pad was distributed for participants to key in their opinion on Q&A polls held after each session. Instant statistics were generated and displayed, which ensured complete involvement. The result of these polls will eventually feed into a high level roundtable of policy makers to be held on
4 December.
Sam Freedman, Director of Research, Evaluation and Impact at Teach First spoke about the value of research in education system. He emphasized on the importance of creating research based professionals, the steps that leads to research based profession and the positive changes that teacher researchers may bring about.
Next was a session on action research success
stories chaired by Rittika Chanda Parruck
where accredited teachers presented stories of
their successful research for Improving
Mathematics and Science Teaching. The other
parallel session chaired by John Shackleton featured presentations from ELTReP recipients and Connecting Classrooms researchers on English Teaching. There were interactive Q&A rounds after each session for the audience to share their experience and views on action research.
Dr Angela Cook, an independent consultant
in the education sector spoke about the
Global Teacher Accreditation (GTA) programme
in India. She pointed out the GTA model is adaptable for all students and this can develop a new level of professionalism and motivation in individuals associated with teaching at various levels.
The morning and noon sessions were followed by a round of informal interactions and knowledge sharing over tea while the participants viewed poster exhibition of research submissions by themselves and their fellow researchers.
After a round of evening refreshments and discussions was an extremely engaging session by John Shackleton who interactively explained Continuing Professional Development (CPD) framework and how this could help a teacher develop as a professional and evolve into a Teacher Educator to contribute to the teaching profession in a meaningful way.
The day concluded with a lot of enthusiasm and positivity over certificate distribution to successful Global Teacher Accreditation Awardees as a token of appreciation and acknowledgement of their meaningful contribution through their research efforts. Participants said they found the sessions engrossing and look forward to many more such effective engagements as this experience enabled them grow as professionals.
Contributed by Ruma Roy.