An Action Research on Mobile Professional Development for Rural Cameroon Secondary School Novice Teachers of English

Description

This textbook highlights a novel and effective approach for designing context-appropriate continuous professional development (CPD) for novice teachers of English as foreign language from rural areas in mobile communities of practices. Relying on action research (AR) and teacher research (TR), the author of this book challenges the traditional top bottom approach to professional development delivery and suggests a novel model which is not only context-appropriate, but which more importantly takes into account the needs of the target population and their attitudes towards the use of mobile technology for professional purposes. The book is a necessary tool for supervisors of instruction who have difficulties delivering professional development (PD) contents to novice teachers from rural area schools. The author, in a step-by-step approach, systematically demonstrates how the following pedagogic activities can be successfully completed on a mobile community of practices: collaborative design of teachers’ continuous professional development (TCPD) on the mobile phone via WhatsApp, the sharing of pedagogic and reference documents, the design of context-appropriate schemes of work, the design of assessment tools, the filling in of the record of work book, and the organization of instruction in an under resourced teaching environment. The model designed by the author and known as the Mobile Professional Development Model for Novice Teachers in Difficult Circumstances remains a tool to be fully explored by education specialists who are interested in designing and delivering PD contents to novice teachers in challenging circumstances across the world.