Enhancing Teaching Professional Skills of College Teachers

Continuing Professional Development (CPD) refers to beliefs and practices of teaching. Teacher learning occurred in many forms of teaching practices. The study probed four facets of continuing professional development. They were: internal, external, research and collaborative. CPD consisted of two dimensions-beliefs and practices. Beliefs refer to preferences of values which were necessary for professional development. Practices were behavioral activities teachers adopted during their job career. Teachers used institutional facilities for professional development (external orientation). They had also inner urge to improve themselves for professional courses (internal orientation). Though research orientation and collaborative orientation emerged as potential factors of continuous professional development (CPD), teachers did not prioritize it to their professional courses. This showed lack of research activities for quality teaching. In every instance teacher’s value beliefs about their professional learning outstripped their practices. Teachers by and large, were stronger in their beliefs and practices on internal orientation to learning. They had also moderate levels of beliefs and practices on external sources of knowledge and information. It was also true in case of research orientation, indicating some skepticism about its relevance and usefulness for teaching practice.