Teacher Learning

When I finished high school, I decided to try teaching English at Translex Institute in Lima. I did this for a few years and along the way, I enrolled in some advanced level English classes at the Peruvian North American Cultural Center. I learned to teach ESL through formal and informal mentoring, but primarily, I think there was a natural disposition for the profession, which made it possible to connect to the students.

Moving the timeline a bit forward due to the technical nature of my previous jobs, in 1996 I had the chance to join Markham College as an Information Technology teacher for the Upper School. This was my first time teaching in English at a school. In the past 12 years, I have seen intermittent attempts to support teachers in acquiring better pedagogical subject knowledge. Professional development opportunities generally focused on improving teaching techniques. For me, however, it was crucial to receive support for training in the use of advanced programming languages, since it was a requirement in the IB program.

The school also provided opportunities for teachers and parents to learn more about ICT throughout the year attending in-service workshops. In addition, once a year, the Association of British Schools in Peru organized an event called TTT (Teachers Teaching Teachers). It was a one day seminar which gave us the chance to participate in 3 sessions to learn from our colleagues. Unfortunately, you had to be lucky to find pertinent workshops in your field.

Lately, there has been a shift to sharing expertise with other schools in Peru. The affiliation to the Round Square schools organization opened service opportunities in different manners. Initially, Markham would just donate equipment or send a delegation of students and teachers to carry out a particular task that most likely involved improving infrastructure. Today, Markham teachers are sharing their expertise through workshops on educational technology in some public schools throughout the country.

The incorporation of laptops brought many changes in the ways teachers worked. Initially there was a huge effort to populate the Intranet with educational materials. Several other initiatives came along, like the incorporation of constructivist and enquiry-based learning, as well as assessment for learning. Just lately, teachers were being required to use Smartboards in some of their lessons.

During my time at Markham, the school invested huge amounts of money bringing in specialists to evaluate the running of the school. From the Lancaster University all the way to the Latin American Heads Conference review team, my department has been evaluated thoroughly. Feedback has been provided at all times, but I think the school has failed to work consistently in paying attention to the recommendations.

In conclusion, I think the school is in a constant race to incorporate new trends in education, but is failing to give teachers the chance to fully integrate and assess the outcomes of these implementations. I think the school has to conceive that some teachers may take full advantage of the technological assets, while others are in better standing by simply blending varied learning and teaching approaches with technology that works best with the students.