Continuing Professional Development of Teacher Educators: Challenges and Initiatives

Continuing Professional Development (CPD) is a prerequisite for teacher educators. The importance of CPD for teacher educators lies in the fact that it helps them to improve their professional and instructional practices. Teacher educators usually begin their CPD after joining the profession and continue it as a lifelong learning process. There are two popular routes of CPD for teacher educators: programs planned and mandated by external agencies and their self-initiatives. Researchers conducted in different parts of the world reveal that, like external initiatives, selfinitiative also play an important role in the professional development of teacher educators. As part of their self-initiatives for CPD, teacher educators themselves act as the developers and creators of their professional learning opportunities and activities. Researches also depict that some factors may negatively affect teacher educators’ attitude and capacity to initiate his/her CPD activities. Extending all these arguments, the present study aimed to study teacher educators’ self-initiatives of CPD and the challenges they face in this journey. Data to conduct the study was collected from a sample of 120 teacher educators’ by using ‘Teachers’ CPD Initiatives Scale’ & ‘Teachers’ CPD Challenges Scale’, and analyzed by using percentage and product-moment r.


Background
There is a growing focus on the qualities of teacher educators involved in teaching the next generations of teachers (ETUCE, 2008). Because they have a direct influence on the initial training of student teachers (Furlong, et al., 2000) and for many teachers, they are role models. From them, the teachers acquire different competences, skills and values that they deploy further in their classrooms. They not only maintain and improve the quality of the education system but also develop it through their role as developers and mediators of knowledge about education and as educational innovators also (European Commission, 2013). The work of teacher educators is of such high quality and importance (Snoek, et al., 2011) that raising their quality can lead to wider improvements in education (European Commission, 2012;Buchberger, et al., 2000). How the quality of education depends on the quality of teacher educators is logically argued by Murray (as cited in Westrup, 2009): "The quality of teaching depends in large measure on the quality of the teachers; the quality of the teachers depends in large part upon the quality of their professional education; the quality of teacher education depends in large measure on the quality of those who provide it, namely the teacher educators".
To ensure the quality of teacher preparation programmes, teacher educators need to be involved in continuous professional development. They need to become more knowledgeable professionals than they were a year ago (Smith, 2003). As a professional group, they are increasingly aware of the need to continue to work on their competencies and the importance of being lifelong learners who keep in touch with the latest developments and insights in their field (Swennen & Van der Klink, 2009).
Teacher educators usually begin their CPD after joining the profession and continue it as a lifelong learning process. There are two popular routes of CPD for teacher educators: programmes planned and mandated by external agencies and their selfinitiatives. Research conducted in different parts of the world reveals that, like external initiatives, self-initiatives also play an important role in the professional development of teacher educators (Al Neaimi, 2007;Mann, 2005;Richard & Farrell, 2005). Many studies confirm that self-initiated professional development has a more positive effect on increasing the standards of professional learning (Johnson, 2006;Mann, 2005;Pettis, 2002). While programmes planned and mandated by external agencies are not available to many teacher educators, they can create professional development opportunities for themselves by taking self-initiatives like reading new books or journal articles (Phelps, 2006;Baily, et al., 2001), engaging in action research, reflecting on their teaching (Johnston, 2002;Nunan, 2001;Bartlett, 1990), and working collaboratively with their colleagues, sharing skills, experiences, and solution to common problems (Richards & Farrell, 2005). Besides, they can also observe the classes of their colleagues, conduct researches, and evaluate teaching-learning material. Thus, there is a range of development activities that can be initiated and planned by the teacher educators themselves (Richards & Farrell, 2005;Pettis, 2002). The research revealed that the level of initiation for professional development activities is partially influenced by the type of challenges teacher educators encounter (Mahmoudia, & Özkana, 2015;Avalos, 2011;Jurasaite-Harbison & Rex, 2010). Many researchers have reported different hampering factors for CPD like time, accessibility, staff motivation, and financial issues (Geldenhuys & Oosthuizen, 2015). Unsupportive managers, staff attitude, availability of programs, work pressure, family commitments, unsafe environments, and participation on own time are also identified as hampering factors (Fernandez-Manzanal, et al., 2015;Drage, 2010). The intensity of these CPD hampering factors increases when there are no systematic policy provisions. The CPD of teacher educators in India often faces this situation. The other notable aspect is that available CPD policies in India treat all higher education teachers alike and do not have any distinct provisions for teacher educators, for example, NCFTE-A major policy document of teacher education does not recommend any specific CPD provisions and opportunities for teacher educators (NCTE, 2009).
Not only in India has CPD of teacher educators remained a neglected area in other countries as well. Researchers argue that little attention has been paid to this profession and little empirical evidence directly concerned with the professional learning of 'this unique occupational group' is available (Murray & Harrison 2008;Korthagen, et al., 2005). Smith (2003) observes that "there is a wealth of information about how teachers develop professionally…but little about how teacher educators develop professionally". In the backdrop of all these observations and arguments, the present research was conducted to study the: 1. Initiatives are taken by teacher educators for practicing CPD. 2. Challenges faced by teacher educators in practicing CPD.

Hypothesis
There is no significant relationship between teacher educators' CPD initiatives and challenges faced by them.

Methodology
The present study was conducted on teacher educators teaching the classes of B.Ed. and M.Ed. in aided and self-finance colleges of teacher education. These colleges are affiliated with Chaudhary Charan Singh University and are spread in all the seven districts of Meerut and Saharanpur Mandal. From 10 aided and 213 self-finance colleges of teacher education, 7 aided and 14 self-finance colleges were selected using the stratified cluster random sampling method. The data was collected using the 'Teachers' CPD Initiatives Scale,' and 'Teachers' CPD Challenges Scale'. Both these scales were developed and standardized by the researchers themselves. 'Teachers' CPD Initiatives Scale' is a three-point rating scale ['Often' 'Sometimes' and 'Never'] and includes 27 items divided into 5 dimensions i.e. collaborative, reflective, constructive, digital, and financial initiatives. Teachers' CPD Challenges Scale is a five-point scale (ranging from "Strongly Agree" to "Strongly Disagree") and includes 28 items. This scale focuses on infrastructural, institutional, time managerial, psychological, unavailability of opportunities and financial type of challenges. For data analysis, percentage and product moment 'r' was calculated. To study teacher educators' CPD initiatives, the percentage was calculated for all three categories ['Often' 'Sometimes' and 'Never'] separately. In the case of teacher educators' CPD challenges, the "Strongly Agree" and "Agree" categories were merged and then the percentage was calculated for the composited categories. Both these scales were given to all the120 teacher educators working in the selected colleges. Out of these 120, only 113 teacher educators filled both the scales completely. Therefore, the final sample size constituted 113 teacher educators.

Analysis and Results
The summary of the frequency of teacher educators taking collaborative, reflective, constructive, digital, and financial initiatives for their CPD is presented and analyzed in Tables 1,2,3,4, and 5. The summary of infrastructural, institutional, time managerial, psychological, unavailability of opportunities, and financial type of challenges they face in the practice of CPD is presented and analyzed in Tables 6, 7 , 8, 9, 10, and 11. And the relationship between their CPD initiatives and the related challenges is presented in Table 12.  Table 1 shows that there are only 39.82% of teacher educators keep track of activities of national/ international teacher associations. Helping junior colleagues is the most popular collaborative CPD initiative among the given five but only 50.44% of teacher educators do it regularly. Only 38.05% of teacher educators take feedback from their colleagues on their research papers and 10.62% never initiate it. 35.39% of them try to become a member of editorial boards of different research journals but a large number of teacher educators (26.55%) never try for it. Reviewing recently published textbooks/reference books is done by only 27.43% of teacher educators but 8.85% are not interested in any such activity.  Table 2 reveals that initiatives based on reflection, discussing classroom experiences with colleagues and consulting with the experts are the most initiated CPD activities (54-57%). Maintaining a diary is the least initiated activity as only 23.01% of teacher educators practice it. The other notable observation is that 10-15% of teacher educators hardly attempt any reflection based initiation.  Table 3 shows that only 37.17% of teacher educators write papers or articles while preparing instructional material is limited to 42.48% of them. Only one-fourth of teachers keep themselves engage in developing online teaching-learning material, preparing research proposals and carrying out research projects. Surprisingly, 15-23% of teacher educators keep themselves away from CPD activities.  Table 4 clarifies that activities such as watching online educational programmes, listening to educational discussions and debates, sharing academic experiences on social media, and consulting e-learning material are done by 42-49% of teacher educators. Among the selected group, 33.36%make efforts to join online teaching communities regularly and 36.28% give preference to have an account on academic websites. Data also reveals that 29.20% of teacher educators are a member of online libraries of other institutions. According to table 5, 44-53% of teacher educators spend money on their own for purchasing journals, books and other related learning materials. 24.78% of teacher educators attend paid online professional development courses while 20.35% of them have not thought of attending such courses.  Table 6 reflects that only 38% of teacher educators have computer facilities in the institution they served and 32.74% of them also have internet access in their institutions. 45.13% of teacher educators cannot engage in their CPD. They don't have a personal cabin or separate place to sit and work in an institution and 43.36% report that their institutional library does not subscribe to the adequate number of e-journals/print journals.   Table 8 shows that 33-46% teacher educators suffer from time constraint to practice CPD, 46.02% complain that their work schedule and CPD activities often conflicts, 42.48% tell that family responsibilities consume their spare time, and 33.63% of them complain about extra workload in the institutions resulting nonpractice of CPD. A look at Table 9 reveals that 24-34% of teacher educators view CPD activities useless as these activities do not help them in salary increment or promotion and also of the view that they do not need to engage in CPD as they are already settled and satisfied with their present position. 42.48% of them report that they are teaching well even without CPD. For 30.97% of teacher educators, spending time with their family is more important than their CPD. And 51.33% of them demand that CPD activities must take place only during working hours.  Table 10 shows that 34.51% of teacher educators report the unavailability of CPD opportunities in nearby places and face difficulties in getting selected as participants and complain. They also complain that these activities are organized mainly for teachers of government institutions. At the same time, 33.63% of teacher educators complain about the uselessness of available CPD activities. From Table 11, it is clear that 37-39% of teacher educators find participation in CPD activities expensive and 42.48% of teacher educators report that they are not provided any traveling allowances to attend different CPD activities in other places. While 41.59% complain that their institutions do not reimburse the registration fee for attending CPD programmes.  Table 12 shows no significant correlation between teacher educators' CPD initiatives and the challenges they face. The probable reason for acceptance of this null hypothesis may be that certain factors or challenges may partially affect the professional development of teacher educators but the major role is played by their willingness to take their responsibility for their CPD.

Discussion and Conclusion
On the basis of the above presented analysis and results, it can be concluded that teacher educators need to increase their CPD initiatives. On an encouraging note, 50-56% of teacher educators are engaged in helping junior colleagues, discussing with colleagues on educational issues, consulting with experts, and purchasing teaching material. Besides, 42-49% of teacher educators are engaged in the preparation of instructional material, consulting on-line learning material, use of social media for academic discussions, and watching and listening to educational programmes. On the flip side, quite a less number of teacher educators are involved in other important CPD initiatives. A considerable number of teacher educators hardly take initiation to engage in such activities. These findings support the earlier observations by Bolitho and Padwad (2013) that teachers' initiatives regarding CPD are poor both in quantity and quality in India. This situation may be attributed to the restricted view of CPD which prompt teacher educators to believe that their CPD is the state responsibility and cannot do anything on their own (Bolitho & Padwad, 2013).
At the institutional and infrastructural level, many teacher educators were found facing several challenges regarding availability and access to CPD opportunities. Not getting paid leaves to practice CPD is an issue for many teacher educators (35.39%). No availability of relevant CPD opportunities in nearby places is also a big challenge for many teacher educators, as reported by other studies (Davi & Bwisa, 2013;Opfer & Pedder, 2010). Time constraint in terms of extra workload (33.63%) (supported by studies of Van der Klink, et al., 2017;Davi & Bwisa, 2013), and conflict between work schedule and CPD activities (46.02%) was found as other major factors that hamper the CPD participation of teacher educators. Further, a considerable number of teacher educators were found to be facing financial constraints to practice CPD (also reported by Davi & Bwisa, 2013). Above all, psychological challenges emerged as the most striking challenge as many teacher educators believe that CPD activities should be practiced only during working hours (51.33%) as their spare time is for their families (30.97%).
Some of the teacher educators reported that CPD activities are useless for them because these do not help to get salary increment or promotion, and some of them do not engage in CPD as they are satisfied with their present position and knowledge. Adding to this, many teacher educators were found neutral in their responses to the given statements in 'Teachers' CPD Challenges Scale' which reflects that either they are not aware or they hardly about their CPD. Findings further revealed no relationship between teacher educators' CPD initiatives and the related challenges as CPD initiatives are much likely to be affected by the responsibility and the intrinsic motivation a teacher has for his professional development ( Van der Klink, et al., 2017). In all, it can be said that the findings of this study covers a small sample and cannot be generalized but presents a first look at the issue of CPD of teacher educators. More exhaustive data on this aspect will help present a comprehensive and clear picture of what teacher educators do for their professional development and what factors negatively affect their professional learning.