Professional Development for Teaching Assistants
The role of teaching assistants (TAs) has increased in complexity. TAs (also known as “para-educators,” “co-teachers,” or “teacher aides” in some schools) are spending less time arranging educational resources and keeping the classroom clean and tidy and are spending more time supporting students with special educational needs (SEN) and managing students with challenging behavior. Subsequently, their daily duties are becoming overwhelming. Unfortunately, TAs often feel under-prepared for their complex role, especially when working on challenging student behavior.
More Responsibilities
International schools are giving TAs more teaching responsibilities. Some schools require TAs to lead small groups, while other schools expect them to teach the entire subject by themselves. With an ever-increasing number of new schools opening in East Asia and the Middle East every year, native English-speaking teachers are in high demand. The shortage of teachers is exasperating; it has become a severe challenge in recruiting qualified and experienced teachers. Correspondingly, English proficiency among TAs has improved, and international schools are turning to TAs to perform more teaching as well as student behavior management duties. Some TAs have also acquired teaching certification along the way. They are a tremendous support to the teachers. They work to support students with language and communication needs, adapt and modify curriculum for students with SEN, support students with literacy and numeracy, help students deal with social and emotional issues, provide personal care, supervise students before and after school, break time, and lunchtime, conduct classroom assessments, and work with students with challenging behavior. All these tasks require strong observation skills to identify the students’ needs and provide timely support actively.
Behavioral interventions implemented by TAs vary from the more disciplinary to softer strategies, such as calling for student compliance, with the teacher being responsible for managing more difficult student behavior. TAs have a role in the classroom to support the overall management of behavior as well as individual support, such as keeping students on-task, reminding students of expectations for behavior, and dealing with conflict. Among these behavioral interventions, physical aggression, self-injury, and destruction of property have a high priority of professional development (PD) needs.
Insufficient PD Opportunities
New TAs in China are generally fresh graduates from the university. They may not necessarily major in education. Some good schools provide training for their new TAs, but many schools do not offer adequate professional development opportunities. They enter the job learning about the students they are working with by themselves, and they usually express the need for PD to be more effective in their role. Some TAs indicate that they resort to using their own experience as parents in the absence of PD opportunities.
In contrast, others learn by observing how their homeroom teachers respond to different situations in the classroom. As a matter of fact, one TA lamented that she received only one hour of training at her school when she first started her job as a TA. Like professional development for teachers, PD for teaching assistants should be frequent and continuous. It is the responsibility of the school and the teacher to direct and support TAs in their work to obtain ongoing PD opportunities. TAs are essential members of the teaching team; they need practical knowledge and skills to be competent at their job.
TAs spend more than 75 percent of their time teaching and supporting students with behavior management. Therefore, it is logical to assume these are the areas where the most PD is needed. The Association of China and Mongolia International Schools (ACAMIS) recently organized a 4.5-day virtual conference for teaching assistants. There were approximately eighteen sessions to choose from. The participants could attend as many sessions as they desired. The two sessions with the greatest number of participants were Effective Teaching Strategies and Managing Student Behavior.
What is PD?
Professional development in education is broadly defined as learning and development experiences for TAs (and educators) that accelerate teaching and enhance student learning. PD typically targets the teaching assistants’ knowledge, understanding, and skills development that boost teaching practice to result in increased achievement for students. PD experiences should be designed to fit specified, carefully considered learning goals.
Like their homeroom teachers, TAs are generally attracted to PD, which offers practical ideas that relate directly to classroom daily operations. In addition, another factor should be included in the definition of PD: the transformative process of para-educator change. PD activities may be designed to initiate change in the beliefs, attitudes, and perceptions of para-educators about certain aspects of teaching or the desirability and effectiveness of a particular instructional technique or intervention for the classroom.
There are Six Levels of PD effectiveness considered by school leaders:
How enjoyable is the PD for participants
New knowledge and skills gained by participants
Whether new knowledge and skills are applied in practice
The effect of PD on student outcomes
Its influence on the working relationship with their teachers
The impact of the PD in the broader school community.
PD should provide TAs with information relevant to their actual work in the classroom, increase their knowledge and skills and allow them time to reflect on and consolidate learning by having opportunities to practice new skills in realistic situations. Such PD opportunities are more practical and relevant to their actual work situation. It is vital that TAs can translate knowledge from PD into practice.
Self-Guided Online TA Course
Unfortunately, the role of TAs is often devalued. Many schools have limited or no PD budget for teaching assistants. It is almost impossible to register teaching assistants for any in-person workshops or conferences when they incur transportation and accommodation expenses in addition to conference fees. It’s for this very reason that ACAMIS hosted its first virtual TA conference at a ridiculously low registration fee this year. The sessions have now been made available as a self-guided online TA course to all who wish to register. This is a well-thought-through online TA course. Participants can watch videos, plan, try out new strategies, and reflect on the experience with their teachers. These online modules are designed to strengthen the working relationships between teachers and TAs. They also provide opportunities for teachers and TAs to learn together and meet the PD needs of TAs. The participants can also form small groups among themselves and then share their reflections on their experiences. Or they can use the guided questions to review the lessons themselves. The purpose is to provide participants a chance to reflect on what they learn, be held accountable for putting new knowledge and skills into practice, and evaluate what works and what doesn’t work for them in a particular situation. It will help TAs improve their teaching capabilities and optimize their teaching collaboration. For more information about the online TA course, please click below to learn more:
Visit Other Schools
One participant made an excellent suggestion in one of the sessions at the ACAMIS virtual conference for TAs. She said that TAs would greatly value opportunities to visit and observe TAs in other schools. Allowing TAs to visit other schools and classrooms to see strategies in action helps them understand how to put principles into practice in their classroom situations more effectively.
Opportunities such as this are yet another beneficial PD opportunity. All teaching and support staff deserve ample PD opportunities.
