Enhancing Continuing Professional Teachers’ Development in High Schools through Support and Monitoring Offered to Communities of Practice by Stakeholders

Abstract

This study is located in pragmatic research paradigm and adopted mixed methods research approach to get in-depth information from participants on enhancing continuing professional teachers’ development in high schools through support and monitoring offered to communities of practice by stakeholders. Semi-structured questionnaires and semi-structured interview were used as the research instruments to solicit information from seventy-nine participants selected as samples. The participants were purposely selected because of their involvement in communities of practice activities in their schools. The data were analysed descriptively using simple percentage tables for quantitative data while qualitative data were analysed thematically based on the themes that emerged. The findings of the study show that teachers received lot of support from education district officials and facilitators of communities of practice. The type of support received include organising content gap workshop for teachers, encouraging team work, helping teachers in difficult areas of their subjects and assist in difficult areas of facilitation. The findings of the study also indicate that support and monitoring measures in communities of practice helped teachers get feedback that assist them to know areas of their subject matter they need to address and improve on. Recommendations were made that district officials should go on regular class visits to monitor teachers to check if they are implementing what they have learnt in the communities of practice and regular on-site support should be provided for teachers by subject advisors.