--Shane
 
 

The term "teacher development" has two general meanings, depending on how "development" is defined. Teacher development can mean activities, such as workshops and graduate coursework, meant to develop teachers’ professional abilities. Teacher development may also mean the natural process of development which teachers undergo during their careers; this describes a personal process. The latter view of teacher development is the one with which this paper is concerned, and which is addressed by the following theories.

Katz’s study of teacher development was based on preschool teachers, but she suggested it could be applied to "other teachers" (Katz, 1975, p. 53). Katz studied teacher development in order to outline the "training needs" of teachers at different points in their careers (1975, p. 51). She found that there are a minimum of four developmental stages, and that individual teachers spend different amounts of time in each.

Stage One: Survival

Katz’s study found that Stage One, the survival stage, lasts through the first year of teaching. Teachers realized that what they had expected from their undergraduate work was not what they were finding in the actual classroom. Although they had felt prepared to teach and anticipated success upon entering the profession, teachers in this first stage lost these feelings, and simply wished to survive each day. Katz describes this wish for survival as a "preoccupation" (1975, p. 50). The differences between college work and actual teaching which caused this wish for simple survival also led to "feelings of inadequacy and unpreparedness" (Katz, 1975, p. 51.) in some teachers.

Stage Two: Consolidation

The second stage, the consolidation stage, saw teachers figuring out what gains they actually made in the survival stage, and consolidating them. Teachers began to focus more on teaching the students, rather than the subjects. Katz states that a major difference between Stage one and Stage two is that "[d]uring stage one, the beginning teacher acquires a base line of information about what young children are like and what to expect of them. By Stage two, the teacher was beginning to identify individual children whose behavior departs from the pattern of most of the children she knows" (1975, p. 51). The teacher began to recognize specific goals for students, and organize specific tasks and skills on which individual students should work. Katz found that this stage may take place through the second year of teaching, and continue into the third.

Stage Three: Renewal

According to Katz, the renewal stage brings a desire to learn new methods of teaching, to escape from the "same things" (Katz, 1975, p. 52). Teachers in her study sought to renew their teaching styles, and thus were concerned with the "new materials, techniques, approaches, and ideas" (Katz, 1975, p. 52.) However, this concern was not necessarily because the teacher felt that his or her present teaching was not competent, nor was it always student-centered. Students may be learning well, and be quite happy with the teacher’s methods in this stage. The teachers’ search for renewal was often a personal one, undertaken to "refresh" (Katz, 1975, p. 52) the teachers’ own views of teaching.

Stage Four: Maturity

Finally, Katz found that some teachers reach the maturity stage. This could occur within three years, but in some cases took up to take up to five. Teachers in this stage had learned the basics of teaching, and felt secure in their profession. They began to ask "deeper and more abstract questions" (Katz, 1975, p. 53) about themselves and education. Examples of such questions were:

1. What are my historical and philosophical roots?

2. What is the nature and growth of learning?

3. Can schools change societies? (Katz, 1975, p. 53)

These same questions are posed in many undergraduate education classes. However, the teachers in the mastery stage now had experience in the teaching, experience which made such questioning "a more meaningful search for insight, perspective, and realism" (Katz, 1975, p. 53).

Katz summarizes her theory in saying, "It is useful to think of the growth of preschool teachers (and perhaps other teachers, also) as occurring in stages, linked generally to experience gained over time" (1975, p. 53).

In 1969, Frances Fuller presented a three-phase model of teacher development. This model was based on interviews with fourteen student teachers, written statements from twenty-nine student teachers, and a comparison of the concerns of these teachers to those of experienced teachers expressed in previous studies. Fuller’s theory of development focuses on the concerns of teachers beginning in preservice and continuing.

Stage One: Preteaching

Fuller calls the first, or preteaching, phase, one of no concerns for preservice teachers. In talking with sophomore and junior education majors, Fuller found "these students rarely had specific concerns relating to teaching itself" (1969, p. 219). Any concerns they did have were "amorphous and vague" (Fuller, 1969, p. 219). Quite simply, these students were not really sure what to be concerned about, and thought of teaching from their place as students.

Stage Two: Early Teaching: Concerns About Self

The second stage, early teaching, which takes place during student teaching, was marked by concerns about self. These concerns consisted of covert concerns and overt concerns. Teachers in this stage were covertly concerned with how much support they would have in the school environment, getting along with other school personnel, and presenting themselves as professionals. These concerns were classified as covert because they were only expressed "during confidential contacts" (Fuller, 1969, p. 220); these concerns were not stated in written form or "routine interviews" (Fuller, 1969, p. 220).

The overt concerns of teachers in this stage focused mainly on "adequacy in the classroom" (Fuller, 1969, p. 220). These concerns were self-directed. Teachers were concerned with their own abilities. They worried about knowing the subject matter, anticipating problems, being allowed to fail, correcting when they do fail, and being able to cope with being evaluated.

Fuller warns that "[t]o some extent, these concerns are overt. But the intensity of concern with self adequacy (and evaluation) is so great that it is easily underestimated" (Fuller, 1969, p. 221). Student teachers are expected to worry about class management and visits by their supervisors. However, she found that student teachers were often even more concerned with these areas than their supervisors and university counsellors believed.

Stage Three: Concerns with Pupil Needs

Finally, in the third stage, the teachers’ concerns shifted away from themselves and to the needs of their pupils. Teachers measured their success by student achievement and gain, rather than by evaluation by a supervisor. Fuller states that teachers in this stage are concerned about their abilities to:

1. understand pupils’ capacities

2. specify objectives for them

3. assess student gains

4. partial out their contributions to pupil difficulties and gain and to evaluate

themselves in terms of pupil gain (Fuller,1969, p. 222).

An important question is raised by Fuller at the close of this study: Do the above areas of concern actually relate to the teachers’ behaviors, competency, or the learning of their students? Put simply, concerns are not actions. However, concern for an area would seem to suggest motivation to action.

In 1975, after collecting and analyzing more data, Fuller and Brown reexamined the above model. They began by identifying three areas of teacher concerns: survival concerns, teaching situation concerns, and pupil concerns.

Teacher Concerns

Survival concerns are "concerns about one’s adequacy and survival as a teacher" (Fuller & Brown, 1975, p. 37). These concerns focus on controlling the class, being liked by the students, and meeting with supervisor approval. Teaching situation concerns include concerns with the number of students, time constraints, lack of materials, and other situational factors. Pupil concerns are "concerns about recognizing the social and emotional needs of pupils" (Fuller & Brown, 1975, p. 37), as well as concerns about matching curriculum to students, individualizing instruction, and being fair to students.

Four-Stage Model of Teaching Concerns

Fuller and Brown found that teachers in different stages of their careers were more focused on certain concerns, and presented a four-stage model of development. In the first stage, preservice teachers, remembering their time in school, identify with the students. Only "in fantasy" (Fuller & Brown, 1975, p. 38) can they identify with teachers. As in Fuller’s original model, these teachers have no specific concerns, only abstract ones. In the second stage, the preservice teachers begin to have "early concerns about survival" (Fuller & Brown, 1975, p. 38). Their first contact with teaching brings about concerns about class control, mastery of content, and evaluation. Further, they have doubts about their own abilities to teach. They begin to move past abstract concerns about teaching to focus on themselves as teachers. Teaching situation concerns are "added to self-survival concerns" (Fuller & Brown, 1975, p. 39) as teachers progress into the third stage. This stage brings concern with teaching, not just surviving. Teachers are concerned about "limitations and frustrations of the teaching situation, about the varied demands made on them" (Fuller & Brown, 1975, p. 39). They no longer worry about knowledge of content, but about teaching that content to others. Although their concerns have moved from potential difficulties to actually perceived difficulties, teachers in the third stage are still focused on themselves. In the fourth stage, this focus shifts to pupil concerns. Having mastered content and teaching knowledge, and figured out the teaching situation, teachers become concerned with connecting the subject to the students, with meeting student needs. Teachers also move past the subject-oriented needs of students and become concerned about the emotional needs of students.

It is important to note that Fuller and Brown’s model focuses on the concerns of teachers, rather than what they accomplish. A teacher may have great concern about students’ needs, and try to meet those needs, but fail. This failure is not an issue in this theory, only the fact that the teacher had actually been concerned with attempting to benefit the student.

In constructing his study Teacher’s Perceptions of the Characteristics and Influences on Their Personal and Professional Development, Burden interviewed fifteen teachers who had been teaching for four to twenty-eight years, asking them to discuss the characteristics of their development during those years (1979). The teachers discussed, in general, professional characteristics, personal characteristics, and the interaction between the two. Professional characteristics were the most discussed, and the teachers displayed many commonalities in these characteristics across their careers. From these commonalities in professional characteristics came Burden’s theory that teachers pass through three stages of development in their teaching careers. These stages are made up of the first year of teaching, termed the survival stage; the second, third and fourth years of teaching, the adjustment stage; and the fifth year of teaching and beyond, the mature stage.

Teachers’ Perceptions

Across all three stages of development, the teachers related concerns about seven categories of professional characteristics. However, the categories are highly inter-related; development in one contributes to development in another. Each category is discussed below, with the changes in each across the developmental span included in the respective section.

Knowledge of teaching activities. The teachers believed that they had, in their first year of teaching, "limited knowledge of teaching methods, lesson planning, learning problems, record keeping, [and] motivating and disciplining students" (Burden, 1979, p. 264). They felt inexperienced in presenting material. The teachers also feared new teaching techniques, which "might result in a lack of control" (Burden, 1979, p. 103). Overall, they felt unorganized, and as though they were "groping for answers" (Burden, 1979, p. 102).

During the second stage, the second through fourth years, the teachers improved their teaching methods. Because of their first-year experiences, they possessed "more knowledge in planning and organizing subject matter" (Burden, 1979, p. 266). After becoming secure with basic teaching methods, they learned different ones, and were better able to relate the subject matter to students. The teachers felt better organized, and were able to write long-range plans and better anticipate events. Behind all of these gains was a desire to better meet students’ needs.

Overall, the teachers gained the "necessary job skills" (Burden, 1979, p. 273) in their first four years in the profession. In the fifth year and beyond, the subjects reported that they had established a "good command of planning and organizational skills" (Burden, 1979, p. 269). Having become more "perceptive" (Burden, 1979, p.107), they "were able to respond to situations" (Burden, 1979, p. 107) more adeptly, with more appropriate results. Discipline was no longer a great concern, but an established part of classroom management. In short, Burden states, the teachers "knew what they were doing, where they were going, and what they wanted to do" (1979, p. 270). The teachers believed that these gains moved them beyond the desire to better meet students’ needs to the ability to actually do so.

Knowledge of teaching environment. During their first year of teaching, the subjects believed they had "limited knowledge of children’s characteristics" (Burden, 1979, p. 264). They lacked both information about and experience with children’s personalities, behaviors, and interests. They were also unsure of how to relate these characteristics to the school’s rules, and didn’t know what limits to place on discipline. Finally, the teachers weren’t certain about the school’s curriculum and how their own subject matter fit into it. Because of their lack of knowledge about the school environment--students and subject--"they taught the subject rather than the child" (Burden, 1979, p. 265).

As they moved through the second stage, the teachers reported they knew more about their students, and could anticipate events in the classroom. They were "more knowledgeable and comfortable with subject matter" (Burden, 1979, p. 267). As they tried new teaching methods, the teachers figured out which ones worked and which ones did not. The teachers became more reflective in their work with the students, and had a better understanding of their classroom. Further, the teachers also understood the school’s curriculum more fully.

The fifth year and beyond held a strong knowledge of the teaching environment for the teachers. They believed they "knew the children, curriculum, and teaching methods quite well" (Burden, 1979, p. 269). Having become comfortable as teachers, the subjects reported that they "became more reflective about the value of their experience" (Burden, 1979, p. 111).

Image of "teacher". The teachers "adhered to a previously formed image of teachers and teaching" (Burden, 1979, p. 265) during their first year of teaching. They believed "there was a set way they were supposed to do things" (Burden, 1979, p. 112). Their limitations in knowledge of subject and students discussed above also led to them conforming to this set way. Further, many of the teachers "saw the traditional way of teaching as the image they should hold, and they taught in that manner" (Burden, 1979, p. 113).

As discussed above, teachers in the second stage became more comfortable with the subject, and were therefore more willing to try new methods of teaching. As a result, they "gradually abandoned" (Burden, 1979, p. 267) their images of what teachers were supposed to be, and began using the methods of instruction that "worked best for them" (Burden, 1979, p. 267). Finally, teachers in the second stage allowed themselves to be themselves more in their interactions with students, and displayed more personality in dealing with them.

Teachers in the fifth year and beyond continued this abandonment of their images of a teacher, and continued selecting teaching methods that worked best for them. They no longer saw a preconceived role that they were supposed to "fulfill" (Burden, 1979, p. 270). Having mastered the basic teaching methods, they continued to try new methods, which in turn led them from their traditional view of teaching.

Professional insight and perception. First-year teachers, busy trying to figure out their subject, environment, and students, had little knowledge of professional life beyond their own activities within their classrooms. They "often did not notice what else was happening in the school" (Burden, 1979, p. 114). As a result, they couldn’t see the reasons for student misbehavior and learning problems. This inability to look past their own efforts at understanding the subject, environment, and students hindered their efforts to do so; the teachers were unaware of the resources available to them. However, the teachers did not recognize this; they were "unable to see themselves objectively" (Burden, 1979, p. 264).

Teachers began to see the complexities of children, and the teaching environment, in the second stage. They were able to consider student behavior in the context of the school. Because of this increased perception of students’ characteristics, the teachers were able to judge which techniques of instruction would offer the most benefit. This was also related to their changing images of themselves as a teacher, and led to a change in their views of curriculum and instruction.

The ability to see the complex characteristics of children and the professional environment continued in the third stage. With a greater understanding of these complexities came the increased ability to respond to the needs of the students.

Approach to curriculum and instruction. Faced with limited knowledge of their students, the first-year teachers took a "subject-centered approach" (Burden, 1979, p. 255). The teachers took a largely academic view of the students, and had "little personal contact" with them (Burden, 1979, p. 264). Their primary concern was "presenting the material" (Burden, 1979, p. 117). Students were taught as classes, not as individuals.

Again, second through fourth year teachers showed more personality in dealing with students; they were "more open and genuine" (Burden, 1979, p. 268) with the children. These years represented a "transitional period [of] discovering that their students are people" (Burden, 1979, p. 119) for the teachers. They began to see that the class should be based on the students, not the subject, and in trying out new methods of instruction sought those which they believed would benefit their students specifically.

Fifth year and beyond teachers continued growing in their ability to understand the characteristics of their students. Also, they were "concerned with meeting the needs of the children" (Burden, 1979, p. 270). Their approaches to curriculum and instruction continued to become more student-centered. These teachers were also more concerned with their relationships to the students; they sought to have a "more personal emphasis in instruction" (Burden, 1979, p. 269) and to provide "meaningful and pleasurable activities that would meet the needs of the children" (Burden, 1979, p. 119). This was part of a larger concern of creating, and maintaining, a secure classroom environment. Many of the teachers reported that establishing positive relationships with the students was "the most important aspect of the learning environment" (Burden, 1979, p. 120), and that "their behavior was often directed at establishing and maintaining a good classroom environment so warm relationships could exist" (Burden, 1979, pp. 120-121).

Feelings of level of competence. Burden’s subjects viewed their feelings during the first year as those of "uncertainty, confusion, and insecurity" (Burden, 1979, p. 264). They felt the "need to feel confident" (Burden, 1979, 122), but they could not make an objective evaluation of themselves. They were often uncertain and confused, primarily, about controlling the students, "teaching the subject, and improving their teaching skills" (Burden, 1979, p. 265). Further, the teachers doubted their competence in each of these areas, and as teachers in general, and were not sure of how to improve their situation. This uncertainty led to "hesitancy to try different teaching techniques" (Burden, 1979, p. 122). Burden states that "Many teachers were concerned about surviving each day and completing the school year" (1979, p. 266).

Second stage teachers gradually felt more confident, secure, and mature. They moved beyond trying to survive, and "felt more comfortable with what they were doing" (Burden, 1979, p. 267). Rather than focus on their own competence, they began to focus on the students and other "larger concerns of the teaching situation" (Burden, 1979,

p. 268). Again, the teachers became more open with the students, leading them to feel more relaxed in the classroom, which contributed to them being more confident.

Third stage teachers, having mastered basic teaching techniques and figured out which new ones to use, became more skilled at recognizing and responding to student characteristics, and learned where their subject, the overall curriculum, and the school met, had feelings of "confidence, security, and maturity" (Burden, 1979, p. 270). Most new situations caused them no great concern, as they believed they had the knowledge of students and subject to handle them. Overall, they felt "satisfied with their chosen profession" (Burden, 1979, p. 272).

Willingness to Try New Teaching Methods. As mentioned above, first-year teachers were unwilling to attempt new methods, as they were not certain they had mastered the basics. Again, they were concerned with properly presenting the subject matter, but not confident of their competence in doing so. Until they had mastered the basics, they did not wish to risk new methods.

The confidence and willingness to depart from preconceived images of teachers discussed above led to a willingness to try new teaching methods in second-through-fourth year teachers. They sought methods for teaching their students, rather than for teaching the subject. They had mastered the "initial skills" (Burden, 1979, p. 267) of teaching, and were ready to try new ones.

With the increased knowledge of teaching activities, students, and the overall teaching environment of their first four years of teaching, teachers in the third stage were "willing to continually experiment" (Burden, 1979, p. 270) with new methods of instruction. Their increased confidence led them to feel "free to try new things" (Burden, 1979, p. 123). Not only did they wish to try new methods to benefit the students, but to benefit themselves. The teachers wished to keep learning about instruction and to keep teaching interesting for themselves as well as the students.

In general, the theories discussed in this chapter describe how teachers change over time. Teachers begin with concerns about themselves and their own adequacy. As they become more sure of their own subject knowledge, they worry about developing teaching knowledge. Once teachers feel comfortable with basic teaching methods, they become more concerned about meeting the needs of their students, possibly through developing other methods of instruction. Teacher concerns move from the self, to the teaching situation, and finally to the pupils as teachers develop (Burden, 1990).

Sources

Burden, Paul. (1979). Teacher’s perceptions of the characteristics and influences on their personal and professional development. Columbus, Ohio. Ohio State University.

Burden, Paul (1990). Teacher Development. In W.R. Houston (Ed.), Handbook of research on teacher education (pp. 311-328). New York, New York: Macmillan.

Fuller, F (1969). Concerns of teachers: A developmental conceptualization. American Educational Research Journal, 6, 207-226.

Fuller, F, & Brown, O.H. (1975). Becoming a teacher. In K. Ryan (Ed.), Teacher education. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Katz, L. (1972). Developmental stages of preschool teachers. Elementary School Journal, 73(1), 50-54.