El desarrollo profesional del profesorado: ampliando miradas, decisiones y prácticas coherentes

Abstract

El Ministerio de Educación y Formación Profesional (MEFP, 2022) ha publicado y sometido a discusión un Documento que analiza el estado de la cuestión del profesorado y su formación, y formula determinadas propuestas de mejora. Este artículo, referido específicamente al desarrollo profesional docente (DPD), es aportación al debate, agradeciendo a esta Revista la oportunidad de manifestarla. Mi elección obedece a dos razones más importantes. Una, la etapa del ejercicio de la profesión, extendida por varias décadas, es posiblemente la más decisiva en el aprendizaje y la formación continuada mientras se ejerce la docencia y, de ese modo, la más influyente (de la escuela) en la experiencia y el aprendizaje del alumnado, así como muy relevante para los centros, el sistema en conjunto y la sociedad. Dos, porque de un tiempo a esta parte el DPD se ha tornado invisible, casi desaparecido y fuera de foco pese al reconocimiento generalizado de su importancia. Prueba de ello es el trato insuficiente e inadecuado propuesto por el Documento y la escasa atención en ciertas reacciones al mismo. En el primer apartado del artículo se hace una lectura de la propuesta oficial, en concreto de lo que dice y propone sobre desarrollo profesional docente (DPD). Se cuestiona el halo gerencial prevalente, un cierto descuido terminológico e imprecisiones conceptuales difíciles de entender y, asimismo, el recurso a avales referidos exclusivamente a organismos externos, marginando nuestra propia realidad, conocimientos y experiencia acumulada. En el segundo se propone una caracterización del aprendizaje y el DPD con miradas amplias, subrayando diversos significados e implicaciones. En el tercero se esbozan dimensiones relevantes de la formación –propósitos y referentes, contenidos, procesos y políticas, condiciones y servicios necesarios.

Digital Technology and Teacher Professional Development: Challenges and Contradictions in Compulsory Education

“…The precept of training is to promote teachers' personal and professional development throughout their professional teaching careers in a sustained process of learning from themselves, and from and with others. The conceptualisation of training as a 'system' [4] requires a clear political commitment on the part of all of the authorities involved: from the selection and admission of candidates for teacher training [5][6][7]; to support for newly qualified teachers [8,9] ('in many ways the most powerful learning is just beginning as teachers enter their first classroom assignments' [4]; p. 163); and the continuing availability of supports and resources throughout their teaching careers, understood as 'an amalgam of attitudes, commitments, generosity, disposition and teacher identity, with as many variations as there are people who think, feel and teach' [1].…”

“…Teachers should be the protagonists of their own training, not merely its recipients, for, without their personal commitment to learning, there can be no professional development or improvement in education. The corollary of this bold reconstruction of the teacher-subject (brilliantly conceptualised by Schön [15] in the figure of the reflective practitioner) and permanent professional development as the guiding principles of professional training is that teachers must be offered stimuli and incentives to adapt, change and innovate throughout their teaching careers [1,12,22,23].…”

“…Within the current system of education, learning opportunities for teachers may be formal (courses, seminars, workshops, etc. ), informal or non-formal; in-person, virtual or hybrid; individual, group-based or within professional learning communities [1][2][3].…”

Good Practices of Educational Inclusion: Criteria and Strategies for Teachers’ Professional Development

“…Teachers are also expected to have a broad psycho-pedagogical knowledge on which to base, self-evaluate and innovate his/her own teaching performance, as well as the contextualization of the curriculum. The teacher should also be able to work in teams and participate collaboratively and collegially in the governance of the centre, and be able to take on the challenge of his/her own professional improvement, preserving his/her own emotional balance [6][7][8][9][10][11][12].…”

“…However, this understanding of the work of teachers, far from closing the debate on their identity and professional development, opens it up ( [13], since it becomes clear that it is necessary to go deeper and more comprehensively into the profile of the teacher. The following are some of the questions that need to be asked: whether teachers should be understood as mere applicators of the curriculum or as critical interpreters of it, capable of reconstructing it to adapt it to the needs of their context of intervention [7]; whether it is necessary to redouble the recognition of teaching autonomy in line with the idea of democratic professionalism [14]; whether, in this process of construction of the teaching identity, it is necessary to create space for and respect the time required to strengthen the principle of integrating theory and practice typical of reflective professionals [15]; whether this requires an approach to professional development that pivots on institutional, cooperative and collegial work, rather than on individual initiative that is often isolated [16]; and if, given the current climate, it is essential to understand that this professional development is not only about digital competence, but is also about an developing an equitable competence and an eco-social competence, which, based on the principles of care and trust, incorporate the ethical and emotional dimension in teacher training [17].…”