Tim Phillips - Transformer teachers | TeachingEnglish

In this talk, Tim Phillips looks at transformational CPD, what it is and what it means to you.

About the webinar

Every teacher faces challenges and changes. You work in a new school. You teach a different level. You have an especially talented group of students. You have a really challenging student. You have to teach to a new syllabus or for a new version of the exam. You’re observed and you need to respond to the feedback. Every teacher needs to deal with these challenges and changes. Teachers do transform themselves!

This session is for teachers who want to explore how we deal with these challenges and changes. It will focus on the professional practice, Taking responsibility for one's own professional development, and how to get the most out of professional development to meet these challenges.

Sometimes in discussing what effective professional development is, the idea of “transformational models of CPD” is used. I will discuss this concept and look at what it means for you, the audience, and for teachers more widely.

What are the factors that encourage you to seek to develop your practice? How do you identify areas you feel you want to develop? What action do you take? And then what effect does this have on your classroom practice and how do you assess this?

I will be discussing your contributions to polls during the session and comments in the chat room. I will also be presenting examples that teachers have provided about what really makes a difference to their professional development, and using these to provide practical examples of what you can do to continue to be “transformer teachers”.

About the speaker

Tim Phillips is the head of teacher development in English at the British Council and has been leading the development of British Council Teaching for Success, including the CPD frameworks for teachers and teacher educators, and a new set of professional development resources for teachers. Tim's professional interests focus on transformative CPD and the impact of CPD on classroom practice.

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It's really really…

It's really really appreciate it.

Transformer - the hero in students' eyes

After my eyes touched this topic, I was immediately attracted by the idea - to be a transformer. Yes, as shown in the introduction paragraph above, this talk is almost about how our teachers would face new challenges and changes happening in their practical classroom - transforming themselves to be much suitable for changes with CPD's supports. Personally saying: first touching of this topic made me think about the films I had watched from childhood (oh, at the beginning, it was cartoon) - There are some introductions from Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transformers_(film) Transformers are real heroes in children's eyes when I was a child, caused by the reason that they can protect the peace of our earth, bravely face some challenges and take some responsibilities. Another reason is that they can really transform their bodies in various 'channels', in order to present changes to solve practical problems. So that, they became the heroes of children's eyes. They knew how to change, could obtain new changing pathways and could settle themselves well in the worlds from the planet Cybertron to earth. Afterwards, let us transform some enlightenment from films to our real classrooms. What CPD really gave us, I think, should be a natural root for changes up-to-date. In our worlds, eras can change, situations can change, tendencies can change, themes can change, well-being conditions can change, ages can change, families can change, countries can change. Only one thing cannot change - change cannot change. As teachers, if we understand this principle and research the basic foundations of change, we will up-to-date ourselves and let our students see their teachers as a transformer hero. Then, how could us transform ourselves? yeah, from mind. I had learned something from the paragraph above. Give a small summary: (1) Keeping developing motivation in mind - you always need yourself to be more professional than before; (2) Seeking useful conditions from your daily practices for new changes of yourself; (3) Summarising them as several areas for your professional development; (4) Attempting to give some assessments of your 'new transformations' - if I can get this standard, it means my transformation is successful ... (5) Trying to sharing and communicating your own changing with others, in order to make new understandings and opportunities for transformations. These points above are what ideas I applied thinking skills to abstract from language, which I would like to share. Best wishes to understand more about this topic. Thanks