Teacher Professional Development Report

Introduction

Teacher professional development (TPD) has been considered as a central component in improving education. Although teachers are generally involved in professional development for a certification (Guskey, 2002), it is widely believed that TPD should be continuous and systematic (P. Knight, 2002).Teachers as the major agent in teacher development play a crucial role in classroom practices. TPD brings changes to teachers’ beliefs and attitudes with some changes in student learning outcomes, which are the results of teacher classroom practices (Guskey, 2002).

Teachers’ perception of TPD has been investigated in the field and understanding teachers not only in terms of what they do, but also how they think was widely recognised in

Rapid changes in the field of teaching, such as technological innovations or national initiatives, and demands for high standards and calls for quality improvement gave rise to teachers’ need in uptaking and improving their teaching skills (Craft, 2000; Kahn & Walsh, 2006). Guskey (2000) considers professional development as intentional, ongoing and systematic process of improvement. Similarly, for Diaz-Maggioli (2003), TPD is not a one-shot, one-size-fits-all event, but rather it is an evolving process in which teachers enhance their professional development voluntarily to adjust their teaching to student needs. According to Day (1995), besides particular needs, personal and professional histories, current dispositions and the nature of teaching require continuing career-long professional development. Development can be natural, opportunistic or planned. Likewise, P. Knigt (2002) suggests the orientation of teachers to continuous learning. Richards and Farrell (2005) state that the knowledge and skills required during the pre-service level sometimes become outdated or the knowledge and skills they possess may not match with the school needs. As a result, the need for ongoing renewal of professional skills and knowledge arises not only because of inadequate training, but also because of the

In the studies, to elicit teachers’ beliefs and cognition, metaphor analysis was exploited (Tobin, 1990; Thornbury, 1991; Akbari, 2013). Lakoff and Johnson (1980) suggest that using personal metaphors is a way of self-understanding which “is the continual development of new life stories for yourself” (p.233). In teaching contexts, metaphors are considered as a means for teachers to verbalize their profession as a teacher (Pajak, 1986). The investigation of metaphors was also considered as a valuable tool to be used in understanding classroom processes (Marshall, 1990) and in training programs (Thornbury, 1991; Tobin, 1990). Tobin (1990) searched practising and prospective teachers in a project based on a constructivist approach to reveal the change process in conceptualizing teachers’ beliefs and roles through metaphors and the finding were used to implement teacher change. Some studies investigating teacher education employed the metaphor elicitation method in order to understand the underlying teachers’ beliefs on TPD (Tobin, 1990; Bullough 1994). Bullough (1994) suggests teaching metaphors as a useful tool to explore self-as-teacher contextually and developmentally with beginning teachers. Similarly, Kesen (2010) identified metaphors created by language