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Education

Teachers training, to examination

This doctoral thesis, based on the reality of the Chilean situation and on the state of private education without government subsidies, aims to analyse ongoing training of faculty members focused on schools. The main objective is to examine the theoretical basis and the feasibility of training in educational establishments with the interest and aim of qualitatively improving  teachers' training courses. Its development involves a theoretical framework that provides not only experts' viewpoints, ideas and knowledge as a body in the field of ongoing faculty  training, but also the contributions of specialists in the sphere of educational organization on the whole and scholar in particular.

References

"La formación permanente del profesorado centrada en la escuela. Análisis de su funcionamiento". Sebastián Sánchez Díaz's PhD thesis, directed by Joaquín Gairín and read on september 2009, 1st-7th week, in Facultat de Ciències de l'Educació of the UAB.

The frame of reference is given concrete representation in the field study that includes both quantitative and qualitative approaches. In the first case, there were considered the private schools from the east side of Santiago, Chile, whereas in the second one, we counted on the participation of three educational establishments, in the north, center and south of Chile, that usually use the center-training model.

The research understands teacher training at educational institutions as a mode of agglutination. In other words, it agglutinates teachers from a particular educational institution considering their own needs, experiences and practices with the aim of constructing a new learning that cope with their specific requests.

Moreover, teacher training at educational institutions is perceived as a model that allows for innovation, with facilitating and hindering factors. Inside de first ones, the collaborative work and the concept of change stand up, and between the first and the second ones, the factor time and the typical exhaustion from being teacher.

The model of teacher training at educational institutions shows the educational establishment as generating axis of learning activity that, being developed in accordance to the particular characteristics of the institution and its faculty, enables teachers to design their own educational model and promotes their self training. Its application is on the side of professional development and on the side of the educational establishment due to the collaborative work that boosts applied researches and the sharing of experiences. In such a way that bounds theoretical knowledge to professional practice providing direct solutions.

Lastly, this research points out that in Chile:

*Formative actions have traditionally been inorganic, individualistic, vertical, and instrumental, mainly oriented towards correcting, and almost exclusively directed to the classroom teacher, with scarce connection with the teachers´ experiences.

*There are abundant indications and discourses on the importance of teacher training. However, until now schools as educational centers have not had a major role in the training of teachers, despite their relevance when it comes to quality planning.

*The school is the most representative place where social, political and school relationships occur.  It is necessary then to have autonomous educational centers with pedagogical and administrative management capacity if we want to succeed in school-centered permanent training.

*It is very important to discuss and redefine the role of teachers according to the new curriculum and in view of the latest management models that have been proposed. It is most urgent to have scenarios for horizontal analysis and full deliberation on teachers own practice.  Teaching training models must be linked with the workplace reality, which should promote interdisciplinary activity and foster collaborative work.

*It is vital to consider schools as professional learning communities as this will improve teaching practices and favor students to be better learners.

"Whilst the workplace does not become a learning place, learning will continue to be an attractive but peripheral idea", Senge (1999: 36).

Sebastián Sánchez Díaz, Joaquín Gairín Sallán

Department of Applied Pedagogy

Joaquin.Gairin@uab.cat