Teachers as Change Agents: What Does the Research Tell Us?
Education reform efforts often focus on top-down policies and initiatives mandated by administrators and policymakers. However, research increasingly shows that lasting change is driven from the ground up - by teachers leading and mobilizing improvements in their classrooms, schools, and districts.
But what do we know about teachers as change agents? A recent systematic review published in Emerald Open Research aimed to synthesize current knowledge on this important topic. The review uncovered five key insights:
Clearly, teachers are central to the hard work of improving schools. But major knowledge gaps remain when it comes to bottom-up, teacher-led change. As education moves forward, we need more research on how teachers can effectively lead reforms for the benefit of both students and the teaching profession. Teachers have immense knowledge and experience to contribute if given the opportunity.
What do you think? How can we best support teachers as change leaders in education? Share your perspectives in the comments!
To improve learning, teachers can draw attention to the psychological factor and human nature, to the connection between fear and the difficulty of learning, and respectively the lack of fear and the increase in the capacity to absorb information.
You can find more on this topic in the article from this link: https://www.academia.edu/102348821/FEAR_AND_UNFAIRNESS_IMPACT_ON_THE_LEARNING_CAPACITY_OLD_AND_NEW_CHALLENGES_TO_ASSESSMENT_AND_LEARNING
Much of my research has been in the area of Teacher Efficacy. Something I have noticed anecdotally but have not had an opportunity to explore through detailed research is the disparity between what research and experience of teachers say is good teaching and that administrators and legislators say teachers are required to do. While researching both individual and collective teacher efficacy, I found that many teachers are reluctant to discuss things like their ideas for change out of fear of reprisal from those higher ups who have not yet dictated that change is acceptable. Again, I haven't had the chance to deeply explore this through research and perhaps my observations are limited to a sample size that, compared to the Education System as a whole, is quite small. Still, it does seem to make sense and match my observations that at least one reason why few teachers make an attempt to change from the bottom up is that they fear consequences will be imposed by administrators or politicians. Teachers can be excellent agents of change, but only if they are within the educational system. If they attempt to make grass-roots changes and upset parents or principals or politicians and get removed from the educational system, they can affect no change at all.
I would suggest that the best way to support teachers as agents of change is to listen to teachers. This means including practicing teachers in discussions about laws and policies and testing and test questions. It means asking teachers what they need in their classrooms and what they are doing that is working. It means allowing teachers to have agency over their classrooms and sometimes it means taking a step back and allowing teachers to push for change without punishment.
Teachers, change agents, and agents are key actors in historical curricula. You can pay attention to them in the following form:
Teachers: Teachers play an important role in providing historical curriculum, teaching students scientific information and understanding knowledge. Teachers are engaged in teaching historical materials, analyzing and translating theoretical knowledge into practice, answering students' questions and maintaining a historical database. They have representatives, historical classes, online courses and international conferences. Teachers also require creativity and pedagogical experience in some issues in the development of historical curricula.
Changes: Corporate learning materials need to be updated to reflect historical curriculum changes and educational advancements. News, scientific comments, new studies and concepts are necessary to expand the historical information. These changes can be tracked, moderated, and edited by practical historical agents, authors, academic communities, and educational centers.
Agents: Agents (or software tools) are also important in historical software development. These agents facilitate automated batching of programs, data collection and storage, and verification of student responses. For example, a program can automatically retrieve and search historical data from the Internet, archive systems, or other sources. As a result, the teacher can use his time and energy to focus on effectively teaching students historical material through guides, questions, and tasks.
These are officials who are of great importance to the development of good cooperation between teachers, change agents and agents of history curricula. Together, we hope that they will help students learn and understand better.
I think of myself as a scientist who happens to be teaching. My resume has two sides research and teaching and I have not stopped doing both. But I do like the idea. When I think back, how many interesting teachers have I had...very few. None went by the book. Every one was inspiring...made me think. Robert Merton was one. Joseph Bensman another. And then there was one Mr. Betttenbender (spelling may not be correct) back in middle school who asked students to write a paper of their own choosing on a Physics topic. That's when I learned who I wanted to be and that I could.
Aside from my parents and grandparents, neighbors, a second teacher who had a positive effect on my was my first real history teacher my first year of college. For reasons that I cannot explain, I do not remember her name. But she raised the question in my mind of Who discovered America? And going to the NY public library to find out was one of the most exciting experiences--looking through books, through their catalogue to find books wherein I might figure it out. One thing I learned not then, but that stands between public and private...I do not discount Columbus as the one who discovered America's preoccupation with celebrity , but rather think of the circumstance as one of `Columbus' and the how he rose (became a figure head) and fell a story that requires investigation. taking down symbols does not resolve the problem. Adding more might.
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