CAREER STAGES,

ADULT LEARNING,
AND SUPERVISION
INTRODUCTION
A primary intent of supervision is to promote teachers’ growth
and development.
The nexus between school climate and adult learning is
underscored by Cohen and Brown (2013) who indicate that “the
school’s climate supports or undermines educators’ capacity to be
adult learner which in turn has an important impact of their
capacity to promote student learning and achievement” .
 Learning from the work of teaching is central to
student learning, and teachers who engage in learning
“are more likely to remain vital, dynamic, and
contributing members of the school community

Supervisors face the challenge of considering and

meeting the various learning needs of all the adults in a
school community.
LEARNING OBJECTIVES:
At the end of the report, students are expected to:

1. understand the different career stage and theories and models that helps guide
interested school personnel to implement appropriate supervisory practices.
2. explain the 4 career stages of the Philippine Professional Standards for Teachers
(PPST)
3. define adult learning
4. identify the principles of Adult Learning
5. determine the supervisions that embraces the Adult Learners across career
stages
STATEMENT OF CONCERNS
1. What are different career stage theories and models that helps guide
interested school personnel to implement appropriate supervisory practices.
2. What are the 4 career stages of the Philippine Professional Standards for
Teachers (PPST)?
3. What is adult learning and its Principles?
4. What are supervisions that embraces the Adult Learners across career
stages?
 DISCUSSION OF
EACH CONCERNS
What different career stage theories that helps guide interested
school personnel to implement appropriate supervisory
practices?
 Career stages are the various phases through which an employee
goes through while working through the overall tenure of the
career. These career stages highlight the beginning of the job,
growth in the organization, middle stages of the career and the
last & decline stages of the career leading to retirement.
 The availability of different forms of professional learning
provides teachers with the freedom to choose activities that
meet their individual needs. More than one prominent
force guides teachers when choosing professional learning
activities. One of these forces is where the teacher is on his
or her career cycle.
 This cycle explains that a teacher’s progression through his or
her career is filled with “plateaus, discontinuities, regressions,
spurts, and dead ends” (Huberman, 1995).
 Downey et al. (2004) argued “that professional development that
is effective for beginning teachers is far different from that
which is effective for teachers at other points in their careers”
One highly respected teacher growth model is detailed in the
book The Life Cycle of the Career Teacher (Steffy et al., 2000).

This model is based on the idea that teachers will continue to

grow and develop throughout their professional lifetime,
provided they are in an appropriate learning environment
 For Erikson (1963), Levinson, Darrow, Klein, Levinson,
and McKee (1978), their idea was that teachers move
through phases at individual rates from content and
activities that seem to flow from one to another along a
continuum.
 Supervisors help teachers become fully functioning
professionals by recognizing their developmental needs and
by affording learning opportunities that meet these needs.

 A first step is to assess teachers’ needs by examining career

stages and the generalized principles that characterize adult
learning within a particular stage.
STAGES OF CONCERN MODEL THEORY.

Fuller (1969) very broadly identifies three stages of a

teacher’s concerns:
Stages of Concern Model.
 Pre-teaching phase = non-concern;
 Early teaching phase = concern with self;
 Late teaching phase = concern with pupils.
FULLER’S STAGES OF
CONCERN
 Burke, Christensen, and
Fessler (1984) expand the
career cycle model to
include eight stages.

 Depicts dominant ideas

about teacher stage and
career development.
.

Career Stages and Developmental Needs of

Teachers
 Newman, Burden, and Applegate (1980) developed a method
to take the guesswork out of this process—ask teachers
themselves to identify where they are. They suggested that
supervisors have teachers identify their own current stage of
development and its markers.
 WHAT ARE THE FOUR
CAREER STAGES OF THE
PHILIPPINE PROFESSIONAL
STANDARDS FOR TEACHERS
(PPST)?
 THE PPST CAREER STAGES
 teacher professional development happens in a continuum from beginning to
exemplary practice.

 career stages make explicit the elements of high quality teaching for the 21st
century.

 they comprise the scriptures that have been informed by teachers

understanding of what is required at each of the four career stages. the
descriptors represent a continuum of development within the profession by
providing a basis for attracting preparing developing and supporting teachers.
BEGINNING TEACHERS
(CAREER STAGE 1)
 beginning teachers have gained the qualifications
recognized for entry into the teaching profession.

 They have a strong understanding of the subjects’ areas in

which they are trained in terms of content knowledge and
pedagogy. they are trained in terms of content knowledge
and pedagogy .
they manage learning programs and have strategies
that promote learning based on the learning needs of
their students.

they seek advice from experienced colleagues to

consolidate their teaching practice
PROFICIENT TEACHERS
(CAREER STAGE 2)
 are professionally independent in the application of skills vital to
the teaching and learning process. This stage shows the
acceptable standards for all teachers, which should be reached
within the first two or three years of teaching.

 they provide focus teaching programs that need curriculum and

assessment requirements
they display skills in planning, implementing managing learning
programs

they actively engage in collaborative learning with the

professional community and other stakeholders for mutual
growth and advancement

they are reflective practitioners who continually consolidate the

knowledge skills and practices of the career stage one of
teachers.
HIGHLY PROFICIENT TEACHERS
(CAREER STAGE 3)
 consistently display a high level of performance in their teaching
practice. They are accomplished practitioners who mentor and
work collegially with other staff. This is the stage that Master
Teachers are expected to be at.

 they manifest an in-depth and sophisticated understanding of the

teaching and learning process
 they have high education focus situation cognition are more
adept in problem solving and optimized opportunities gained
from experiences.

 career stage 3 teachers work collaboratively with colleagues

and provided them support and mentoring to enhance their
learning and practice
DISTINGUISHED TEACHERS
(CAREER STAGE 4)
 embody the highest standards for teaching grounded in global best
practice. They are recognized as leaders in education, contributors to the
profession and initiators of collaborations and partnerships.

 they exhibit exceptional capacity to improve their own teaching practice

and that of others.

 they are recognized as leaders in education and contributors to the

profession initiator of collaborations and partnership
 they create lifelong impact in the lives of colleagues, students and
others

 they consistently seek professional advancement and relevance in

pursuit of teaching quality and excellence

 they exhibit commitment to inspire the education community and

stakeholders for the improvement of education provision in the
Philippines
 WHAT IS ADULT LEARNING AND
ITS PRINCIPLES?
 Malcolm Knowles was the first to theorize how adults learn. He described
adult learning as a process of self-directed inquiry.

 Adult learning is the entire range of formal and informal learning activities
undertaken by adults and out of school youth which result in the acquisition
of new knowledge, skill and attitude.

 Adult learner is a term used to describe any person socially accepted as an

adult who is in a learning process.
PRINCIPLES OF ADULT LEARNING

1. Make Learning Authentic for the Adult Learner

2. Know What Motivates the Adult Learner
3. Empower Transformational Learning
4. Support Active Construction of Knowledge
5. Establish a Climate Conducive to Adult Learning
6. Create an Organizational Structure for Participative Planning
 WHAT ARE SUPERVISIONS THAT
EMBRACES THE ADULT LEARNERS
ACROSS CAREER STAGES?
The sequence of learning activities must enable adults to
build on prior experiences. Adults need time to practice new
skills and to receive friendly feedback from supportive
colleagues.
 SUPERVISION FOR BEGINNING
TEACHERS
One of the most critical problems facing the profession is how to
improve the development of beginning or novice teachers.
With limited experience and professional expertise, beginning teachers
often solve their problems in a fragmented style, not knowing or
understanding exactly what issues they are addressing and, more
importantly, even why.
BEGINNING TEACHERS NEED
SUPERVISORY EXPERIENCES THAT:
 Introduce them to the supervisory process employed by the
building and district;
 Engage them in overall goal setting;
 Include supervisory processes such as pre-observation
conferences, observations, and post-observation conferences
that begin early and continue throughout the year .
 SUPERVISION FOR
EXPERIENCED TEACHERS
Experienced teachers prefer collaborative supervision that enables
them to direct their own learning.
Brundage (1996) reports that veteran teachers in her study wanted the
opportunity to talk about professional issues with other teachers who had
just as much or even more experience.
Experienced teachers also desired supportive and developmental
supervision.
 EXPERIENCED TEACHERS NEED
SUPERVISORY EXPERIENCES THAT:
 Acknowledge them as professional career teachers who have
experiences to draw on as they reflect upon their practice;
 Enable them to develop their own plans for learning and
experimentation;
 Signal to them that risk-taking is part of the learning process;
 Enable professional sense-making;
 Encourage self-assessment and reflection.
Glickman, Gordon, and Ross-Gordon (2014,) state that,
regardless of the career stage of teachers, effective supervision.

 responds to the principles of adult learning.

 responds to and fosters teachers’ stage development.
 recognizes and supports different phases within teachers’ life cycles.
 helps teachers to understand, navigate, and learn from life transition
events.
 recognizes and accommodates teachers’ various roles.
 foster teacher motivation.
SUMMARY
The literature on career stages and adult learning shows that adults have
unique learning needs; no one model can be applied across all adult
populations. The only constant is that professional development and growth
must be ongoing and sustained. An understanding of adult learning
constructs and career stage theories can help supervisors and teachers
develop a long-term program of growth aligned with current and future
developmental learning needs.
For adult learning to thrive, the supervisor must consider the needs of the
learners who make up the community and engage adult learners in activities
that are career stage–specific and steeped in the principles of adult learning.
CONCLUSION
Teachers have always been at the core of education and their career
development has always been the primary issue of education system. It is
important to note that in order to make differences in students’ achievement,
teachers should constantly develop their field knowledge and teaching skills.
As teachers, let us try to seek new skills and get updated with the new
technology required for growth of our career, it may not bring change to a
career at that moment, but it plays a crucial role for a career change. .
I believe all of these will be achieved through effective instructional
supervision.
REFERENCE CITED
Barth, R. S. (2004). Learning by heart. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
 Beavers, A. (2009). Teachers as learners: Implications of adult education for professional
development. Journal of College Teaching & Learning, 6 (7), 25–30.
 Brundage, S. (1996). What kind of supervision do veteran teachers need? Journal of Curriculum
andSupervision, 12 (1), 90–94. Retrieved from http://web.ebscohost.com/
 Burden, P. (1982, February). Developmental supervision: Reducing teacher stress at different career
stages. Paper presented at the Association of Teacher Educators National Conference, Phoenix, AZ.
 Burke, P. J., Christensen, J. C., & Fessler, R. (1984). Teacher career stages: Implications for staff
development. Bloomington, IN: Phi Delta Kappa Educational Foundation Whole No. 214.
 Cohen, J., & Brown, P. (2013). School climate and adult learning. In T. Dary, & T. Pickeral (Eds.),
School climate: Practices for implementation and sustainability (pp. 1–5). A School Climate Practice
Brief, Number 1. New York, NY: National School Climate Center.
 Retrieved from https://www.teacherph.com/philippine-professional-standards-for-teachers/
THANK YOU FOR
LISTENING AND
LEARNING!
EDLHEN M. JALAC
REPORTER