Literally speaking, professional refers to a person who works in a skilled occupation. A professional can be either a person in a profession [in the sense that certain types of skilled work requiring formal training or education] law, medical, teaching or sport.
Schon[1983] uses the term’ Knowledge in-action’ to describe the knowledge that is embedded in the skilled action of the professional.
A professional is emerging about special characteristic of high quality professional development.. It gives opportunities for teachers to engage in leadership roles. Teaching can be considered as professional, reflective, thinking activity because same features also find with other profession such as medical, law, and architecture and business management. A professional teacher possesses a body of special knowledge taken through formal training and experience. Teachers also have knowledge about their curriculum, teaching method, subject matters and child behavior. Similarly doctors possess formal knowledge about physiology and pathology and experience from patient behavior.
Second feature of professional activity is its goal-orientation in relation to its clients. Regarding teaching, teacher aim is to teach pupils. Teacher influences pupils by controlling curriculum guideline and prepare children for a future. It focuses on how students learn content in depth and active learning
Third feature of professional activity is that the problems professional deal with are often complex and ambiguous. Doyle[1986] describes pertaining to teaching , teacher faces complex situations of the classroom environment in terms of six general features: multidimensionality, simultaneity, immediacy, unpredictability, publicness and history. According to him classroom is a busy place where at a time teacher may be posed complex question to handle. As a result of it how teacher is visualized to cope with classroom situation and it can influence how every pupil assess teacher and respond in future.
The role of teacher professional development basically focuses on knowledge for practice and effort to improve school condition through new teaching pedagogy and methods. Educational policy makers have realized the role of professional development opportunities for teachers. The new opportunities will help for teachers to enhance their knowledge and development new practice. Apart from that teacher professional development envision to promote the creation of body of knowledge in elementary level .As a result of professional growth teacher achieve rich experience and examine teaching systematically.
Teacher professional development is an essential mechanism for developing teacher’s content knowledge and their teaching practice. It also helps to teacher’s capacity to teach to high standards. In context of India the role of teacher professional development to promote for having the ability to think independently and also have academic skills. As a professional teacher must have subject matter content knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge and curriculum knowledge. A teacher also must know how to teach and what to teach and why to teach.
It is to be noted that teacher professional development study adds to the knowledge base on effective professional development. The success of standards based reform depends on teachers’ ability to provide both basic knowledge and advance thinking and problem solving among their pupils. Intact, the role of teacher professional development is to bring implementation in school reform or simply help teachers to improve their teaching.
It can be seen that impact of teacher professional development upon students in terms of skill development, self confidence, or students behavior than the personal growth of teachers. In order to fulfill the professional development appetites of teachers it becomes necessary to leave them in their professional work. In this way, the model of teacher professional development relies on the expertise of teachers.
From novice to expertise a teacher develops over a professional career. There are five stages to consider from novice to expertise. First stage, Novice is taught context free rules such as give praise for right answers wait at least three second after asking a higher order question, never criticize a student. The novice should be able to recognize the context free and rules in order to begin to teach. Second stage, Advance beginner is taught strategic knowledge in the sense that when to ignore or break rules and when to follow them. Third stage Competent. They are very much conscious about what they are going to do. They first decide plan then they set priorities. They have rational approach towards their goal what to attend and what to ignore. Fourth stage Proficient. They have intuitive sense of the situation and also know how become prominent. The proficient performer has analytical view and skill what to do. Stage fifth Expert They have both an intuitive understanding and non analytic sense. They represent fluid performance.
Therefore,it is clear that teaching is professional activity for that professional teacher fulfills all the necessary requirement. A teacher can be called a professional, if he/she possesses knowledge of content(subject), knowledge about student, authorized training certificate,commitment to job.aims of education, knowledge of teaching pedagogy.
REFERENCES
1-James Calderhead, Teaching as a Professional Activity.
2-Lee Shulman, Those Who Understand Knowledge Growth in Teaching.
3-Krishna Kumar, Meek dictator: The Paradox of Teacher’s Personality
4-Michael Fullan and Andy Hargreaves, the Teacher As A Person
5-David Berliner, Teacher Expertise David Berliner, Teacher Expertise
6-Hilda Borko, professional Development and Teacher Learning, Educational Researcher, Vol.33, No,8 [Nov-2004],Pub. American Educational Research Association.
