Need for expertise is recognized but new graduate programs fail to attract students

The Japanese Ministry of Education had hoped to address the many issues schools and teachers are currently struggling with by establishing professional graduate programs in which teachers would develop the expertise needed to meet these challenges. However, these programs have not attracted the number of students originally expected. See the link here for the reasons why.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/27/education/27iht-educLede27.html

Expert teachers get frustrated too!

But maybe not for the reasons we would think. This article from the UK discusses how recognized expert teachers feel they are not being put the best use in terms of participation in the professional development of other teachers. Nor do they feel their impact on improved learning in schools is being properly evaluated.

http://www.getreading.co.uk/news/education/s/2078035_expert_teachers_reveal_frustration

Is it possible to assess the value of teachers?

This article is a couple of weeks old, but it caught my eye in the days leading up to me starting this blog. Value-added assessment has created a stir of controversy, but some think it is one way to evaluate the effectiveness of teachers and their teaching. What do you think?http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/01/education/01teacher.html?_r=1

For more on how others, including practitioners, policy makers, and scholars, feel about the issue, try accessing the NY Times Room for Debate.
http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2010/09/06/assessing-a-teachers-value?ref=education

Or for another opinion try this one.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/05/magazine/05FOB-wwln-t.html?_r=1

Welcome to Expert Teacher

For the last few years I have been grappling with the concept of teacher expertise. Part of this comes from the work I do with teachers of all levels of expertise who are already working in public schools, and the other from the fact that I teach university students who want to become teachers. Though I am usually working with teachers or prospective teachers of English as foreign language whose native language is Japanese, I find myself working more and more with teachers of other disciplines as well. Regular contact with both veteran and novice teachers has caused me to ponder the following questions: What is expertise? How do we get it? Is there some way to help teachers develop it? What do we mean when we say someone is an expert teacher? What makes them different from a novice or even competent teacher? Did they get that way just through years of experience and practice? If so, do all teachers develop expertise if they teach long enough? These are some of the questions I hope you will discuss with me here.