A study of primary school teachers’ professional development programme : The translation of theory into practice in schools

Professional development programmes are criticized for not meeting the practical needs of teachers and teachers are blamed for going to their comfort zones despite their participations in professional development programmes. This qualitative case study explored effectiveness of the program of primary education certificate course looking into participant teachers’ new knowledge, skills and attitude gained from the programme and the implementation of their new learning into their respective classrooms. Nine teachers and 27 students participated in the study. Data was collected through semi-structured and open-ended interviews, classroom observations, documents analysis and focused group discussions with students. The study reports a shift in teachers’ non-reflective attitudes to more reflective attitudes. The quality of their reflections however found to be technical in nature showing their inability to detect limitations of their teaching. The study also found graduate teachers using more learner-centered pedagogies but required more content specific trainings to teach some concepts. The findings also suggest that the graduate teachers developed skills in pedagogy and the utility of those pedagogical skills in their classrooms reshaped their beliefs of teaching, learning and learner. The positive experiences in turn reconstructed teachers’ conception of classroom environment vital in fostering learning of students