The Stages of

Teacher
Development

Learning Outcomes
Explain the stages of teacher
development
Describe some of the challenges of a
beginning teacher
Identify the types of professional
development available for continuing
lifelong learning

Survey Question
What are the most commonly reported
challenges of beginning teachers as
reported by beginning teachers?

Beginning Teachers Most

Often Report These
Challenges:
9. Relations with colleagues
8.
7.
6.
5.
4.
3.
2.
1.

Students personal problems

Insufficient materials and supplies
Evaluating student work
Planning class work
Parent relations
Dealing with individual differences
Motivating students
Classroom discipline

Time Crunchers Frequently

Reported
by Beginning Teachers
After-School
Activities
Coaching
Lesson Planning
Extra-Duty
Assignments
Grading Papers
Meetings
Finding Instructional
Resources
Painting Murals

Preparing for Parent

Conferences
Decorating the
Classroom
Tutoring
Modifying Lessons
Catching Up on
Paperwork
Classroom Cleanup

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Profesional Life Span of A

New Teacher :
The beginning of a teaching career for
some may be charged with excitement,
challenge, and exhilarating success. For
others, the first year of teaching may
seem to be confusing, uncontrollable, filled
with unsolvable problems, and threatened
by personal defeat and failure. For many,
beginning to teach is a unique and more
balanced mixture of success, problems,
surprises, and satisfactions.
(Johnston & Ryan, 1983)
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Stages of Teacher
Develolpment

Trotter (1986)* discusses 5 stages of mastery one

goes through in the process of achieving mastery
of any field:
Novice
Advanced Beginner
Competent
Proficient
Expert
* Trotter, R. (1986). The mystery of mastery. Psychology Today, 20(7), 32-38.

Novice Teachers
In the 1st year
In the beginning years 2nd-- 5th
New to the School or State
Limited Ability, Minimal Skills
Performance Considered Marginal

Who are Novice

Teachers?
Almost 2/3 of beginning teachers are

younger than 25 years

42% have just finished college/U and have
never taught before
Are usually single, in debt or are
financially struggling
Are likely to teach outside their field
Have technology skills
May be more informed about multicultural
issues

Novice Teacher Qualities

Willing & Eager

Responsive

Collaborative &
Cooperative

Values Mentors
Help

Shows Initiative
Receptive
Requests
Feedback

Self-Analytic &
Reflective
Committed

Novice
Learns to recognize various
objective facts, initial concepts,
and specific rules
This stage is the beginning of
the preparation of becoming a
professional educator.

Advanced Beginner
Learns to recognize facts and
elements not defined in the Novice
Stage and learns more sophisticated
rules
This stage continues your
development in your undergraduate
program. Your undergraduate training
ends with a student teaching
experience.

Competent
Begins
to recognize more context-free and
3.
situational elements; simplifies and improves
performance; begins to problem-solve
Begins as you accept full-time employment as
a professional educator. It generally takes
2-5 years of on-the-job training for a
person to become a competent professional
educator.
Many teachers never achieve this level
because they do not gain enough
experience.

Proficient
Learns to identify quickly the
important elements of the task;
develops rapid fluid style based on
intuitive understandings
Only a small percentage of
professional educators ever reach
this stage. These are the teachers
one normally thinks about when
we remember the teachers who
had the most influence on us.

Proficient
Individual's style begins to be
expressed and experience (rather
than school training) begins to be
a major factor in performance.
.

Expert
Experience-based holistic
recognition of similarity leads to
natural, fluid performance that
almost always works
We may only interact with a handful
in our entire education experience.
These teachers are widely
recognized as superior. They are also
likely to be mentors for teachers who
desire to become like them.

Expert
At your stage of development, it is
important to remember that it takes
years of training and experience to
become a competent, let alone a
proficient or expert teacher.
All we ask at this point is that you work
hard and try to learn from your mistakes.
However, you need not feel guilty when
you make mistakes; it comes with being
in your stage of development.

Becoming a Master
Teacher
Both critical thinking and selfregulation are necessary to attain
the level of competence.
As these activities become
habitual, movement to the
proficiency and expertise levels
becomes possible

Expert Teachers have

Expert Knowledge
Let us examine some of the qualities
of expert teachers.
Expert teachers have gained greater
knowledge through their experiences.
They do not appear to have better
memory in general.

Types of Expert
Knowledge
Content Knowledge
Pedagogical Knowledge
Pedagogical-content Knowledge

Organization of Expert
Knowledge

Experts
Deep Structure

Novices
Surface Structure

Implications for Teaching

Teachers become expert by learning
from experience.
Teachers become expert by growing
in efficiency.
Teachers become expert by
developing their insights.

In sum :
Novice to expert

Scenario Planning
Building Partnership
Culture Management
Org. Ldrshp & Mgmt.
Knowledge Mgmt.
Learning Org.
Training and Dev.
Org. Ldrshp & Mgmt.
Systems Thinking
Change Mgmt.

Instructional Ldrshp.
Conflict Mgmt.
Team Building
Creativity & Innovation
Relationship & Networking
Interpersonal
Strategic Mgmt.

Content Pedagogy
Information Mgmt.
Quality Mgmt.
Staff Dev.
Action Research
Etiquette
Content Pedagogy
Communication
Technological Learning.
School Improvement
Performance Mgmt.
Community Dev.

TUTORIAL TASK:
READ THE ARTICLE GIVEN. IN GROUPS OF 4 OR 5
COMPARE THE NOVICE TEACHER AND THE EXPERT
TEACHER (BASED ON THE ARTICLE READ). USE ANY
FORM OF GRAPHIC ORGANISER TO PRESENT THE
INFORMATION EXTRACTED.
SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS OF THE QUALITIES OF
EITHER A PROFICIENT OR AN EXPERT TEACHER.

Acticle :