Teachers As Learners: Self-Directed and Reflective Learning

Effective communication with teachers is important, and it is a critical element of any successful professional development. In any educational system teachers are the important component. Adequate attention should be paid on appropriate and effective training of these teachers. Ideally, professional development offers a means of collaborative support and training to collectively conquer challenges that teachers face both in and out of the classroom. It is widely accepted that continued professional development is need. Certainly, if programs are based on high-quality and meaningful teacher development, they can affect teachers' skills and attitudes in the classroom, further increasing the quality of education that students receive. There are a lot of resources and studies that detail the components of effective professional development; however, these models can be quite extensive, and a busy administrator may be overwhelmed. By incorporating a few basic principles established within the field of adult education, effectiveness of teacher professional development can be dramatically increased. This paper first outlines very briefly some of these concepts, and then offers simple and applicable suggestions for teacher professional development programs such as: the characteristics of adult learners, self-directed learning, transformative learning and critical reflection.