Marcela santillán Tenoch Cedillo Lesson study and Teacher Education in Mexico Marcela santillán Tenoch Cedillo

OECD orientations The analysis of different indicators of school, student achievement and teacher development in Mexico shows that there are important equity and quality challenges. There is agreement among different stakeholders within and outside Mexico that its educational achievement can be improved. Policy efforts aimed to improve the quality of education by: raising student enrolments, increasing public expenditure in education, pursuing decentralization, introducing more assessment practices (student achievement tests in 2005), developing an incentive based system for teachers.

Towards a more coherent policy The OECD Steering Group proposed the need to define the role of the teacher as a high level professional within the framework of a school rather than mainly as an individual teacher with a post. Teacher policy requires adopting a more coherent view of teachers and the policies and practices that surround them, rather than concentrating on specific issues. Only then can appropriate recommendations on specific issues such as teacher accreditation mechanisms or teacher training and development can be developed.

A coherent long term view of teacher policy focused on schools Providing systemic coherence: Consolidate a common set of standards that “good teachers” may have and/or develop. This should be the reference for teacher initial education institutions, teacher continuous development, teacher evaluations and teacher certification and rewards mechanisms. Incentives: The current career development structures or any potential new structure must provide stronger incentives that would improve equity and quality within the system.

A coherent long term view of teacher policy focused on schools Systemic quality assurance and evaluation: Evaluate the certification and accreditation processes used and improve them. Accreditation centres could potentially be an option to measure other relevant aspects of teaching (e.g. language and communication skills). School autonomy: Develop school autonomy progressively, for example, by initially giving schools a say on teacher selection processes. Establishing clear teacher accreditation and promotion

A coherent long term view of teacher policy focused on schools All new and vacant post should be open for fair competition. Efficiency of teacher allocation to schools: To enhance the focus on schools, rather than on individual teachers, it is vital to explore new ways of matching the preferences of teachers and schools; and reinforce structures and incentives to encourage experienced teachers to work in more challenging schools.

A coherent long term view of teacher policy focused on schools Ensuring a coherent strategy between teacher initial education and professional development: Continuous training should not have to compensate for initial education; instead it should complement it and be relevant to teacher and school needs. This requires striking the appropriate balance between initial teacher training and continuing teacher professional development. There appear to be around 34.000 graduates annually from Normal schools, out of the approximately 1.3 million in service teachers who require skills upgrading. A greater focus will be required on the quality and quantity of continuing professional development, but efforts to improve initial training need to be made to ensure that future teachers have the appropriate skills. Among these efforts are:

A coherent long term view of teacher policy focused on schools Strengthening the quality of initial teacher education: Initial teacher training need to preselect high quality students and then give them the space, the time and the supports to master the knowledge, attitudes and skills required of the teacher in the knowledge society, including pedagogical training. This can require evaluating the current network of educational institutions providing this type of training and ensuring quality teachers, quality content and relevance. The accreditation mechanism applied can help set the standards by which initial teacher training can develop their teachers.

A coherent long term view of teacher policy focused on schools Investing in quality continuing teacher training. After an analysis of the status and skills of practicing teachers (OECD TALIS can be a useful tool), a better match between the needs of schools and teachers and training supply will be possible and revising the weight given to the training is important to ensure relevance to practice and high quality results. To strengthen provision, the development of regional education centers might be a possible alternative. But reforms will not work unless teachers are engaged in the reform processes. Exploring school based training and education strategies. New and more innovative effective training initiatives such as school based development peer efforts should be identified, recognized and supported.

Current issues in the MexicanTeacher Education In 2007 the Ministry of Education call all Normal Schools in Mexico to participate in the creation of a community of professional practice aimed at refreshing the academic activity of the mathematics teacher educators. At the core of that activity is the Japanese Lesson Study with special emphasis on achieving a profound knowledge of school mathematics. 140 teacher educators from all over the country volunteered to participate in such community of professional practice.

Current issues in the MexicanTeacher Education Since 2008 the members of the community of professional practice meet together four times a year in Mexico City. Each meeting lasts 20 hours split in three days.   As part of the strategy a site for online work has been created. Where a student teacher can enter the site and customized its own assessment, select the topic, how many questions wants to confront, its difficulty level, and the system will randomly create a personalized mathematics questionnaire. Besides, the system provides ample feedback once a questionnaire has been completed and keeps his record.

Lesson Study movement in Mexico On the context of APEC Lesson Study Project, the Mexican Ministry of Education and the University of Tsukuba set out a collaborative project to enhance the lesson study movement for pre-service and in-service teacher education in Mexico. The project is focus on developing sharable teacher education content deeply related with pedagogical content knowledge and based on the theory for teaching school mathematics developed in Japan.

Lesson Study movement in Mexico In 2008, the Mexican Ministry of Education and University of Tsukuba implemented a lesson study meeting in Mexico City. 200 teacher educators observed Japanese teachers teaching to Mexican elementary school students. After the lesson studies, the participants discussed what is lesson study and how it is meaningful for Mexican teacher education.

Lesson Study movement in Mexico Based on this collaboration, SEP and University of Tsukuba agreed to: Translate into Spanish the English version of Japanese textbooks Held a workshop in Mexico City in 2009 and 2010, respectively.

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