District Institutes of Education and Training - Teacher Education

District Institutes of Education and Training: A Comparative Study in Three Indian States
Chapter 7 Professional Development through
Collaborative Action Research with Diets
7.1 Introduction
The preceding chapters have illustrated that in the DIETs, pre- and in-service
teacher development largely follow a transmission model, with a dominant focus
on teaching, rather than learning. The evidence from across the case study sites is
that this model is not really engaging with either pre- or in-service teachers on
important issues such as their attitudes and values, or aspirations. While it aspires
to build teachers’ skills, it does so without informing itself about which skills
practising and student teachers already have.
Although the evidence suggests this is a relative weak version of the internationally
dominant ‘skills and knowledge’ approach, this kind of approach has intrinsic
limitations. It pays little attention to the context in which those skills are to be
used, and does not concern itself with the crucial question of a teacher’s will to
adopt change messages (Hargreaves and Fullan 1992). This is particularly
important in the contexts we are examining here because, as the situation analysis
has highlighted, there are issues around agency, ownership and responsibility -
among DIET staff as well as pre- and in-service teachers. Developing educators’
sense of agency, ownership and responsibility emerges as an aspect of
decentralisation that needs to be actively encouraged. These issues are central to
teacher development and the promotion of quality elementary education, but are
not really being addressed by current training approaches. Pace-setting teachers
and some DIET staff, on the other hand, have a strong sense of personal and
institutional agency in relation to change messages, have ownership of classroom
processes, and feel responsible for others’ learning.
The following three chapters explore an alternative approach to teacher educator
and teacher development that focuses on agency, ownership and responsibility. The
approach adopted by the research team differed from the dominant model to
practitioner development adopted by the state, in that it does not see the teacher
as a ‘technician’ who is expected to implement the ideas of others, or training in
terms of inputs towards skill building. Rather, it builds on Donald Schön’s (1983)
idea of the teacher as a ‘reflective practitioner’ and decision-maker, linking this
with the idea of engaging practitioners with their practices in ways that make
‘training’ a more meaningful experience.
7.2 Professional development for DIET staff
7.2.1 Action research as an avenue for professional development
The possible avenues for professional development of DIET staff were many, but
DIETs elected to focus with the team on the action research component of their
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