Essays on Teachers' Education and Professional Development- Teacher Education Book

ESSAYS ON TEACHERS EDUCATION AND PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

       [A guide to Teachers excellence in Pakistan]

Afshan Huma

Daastan Publishing

First Published in Pakistan by Daastan PVT LTD

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ISBN: 978-969-696-786-6

This book is a collection of essays written by the author during her 23 years career of teaching and learning to teach. The book mainly covers the intellectual progression of the phenomenon of teaching as a modern profession and how teachers’ education, preparation, and professional development are seen in the context of Pakistan.

Contents

A short journey in learning to teach

A book that helped me understanding teaching

Understanding teacher education

Where to teach teachers?

Research on effectiveness of teacher education programs

Teacher education in Pakistan- the big picture

Understanding professional development

Teachers appraisal for professional development

Rethinking the learning cycle

Research Reflect and Relearn

This book is dedicated to my late mother who got an early retirement and said:

“I have given my daughter to the field of teaching.

A Short Journey in Learning to Teach

Time perception is the most interesting feature I have ever learnt. During sleep of a couple of hours I can travel to the other end of the world and come back through dreams. But in reality, I have spent years and years in a profession yet, I have actually travelled only a few steps from where I began and I am still learning. I have been teaching in Pakistan for more than two decades and I am still learning to teach. Education, like any other field of practice, has changed over time. My own schooling that began in 1980 in a passive learning environment, remained influenced by behaviorist and cognitivist approaches yet during ten years of my schooling the environment had already began to change.  This change affected me as a student and by the year ten at school, a silent and passive student had transformed into an active, vocal and confident girl. I was told by my teachers in school that I was an outspoken person, someone said, I was going to be a lawyer as in our society may be only lawyers were allowed to argue and some of them also said that I was a born teacher as I always helped my class fellows in problem solving and in learning new concepts. 

How can the process of learning to teach ever stop?  To me, it surely is a lifelong process. Currently, for the purpose of writing this essay, I will mainly divide the process of learning to teach into three stages:

1. For the very first time, we develop ideas about good and bad teaching as students

Teaching and learning is a two way process, therefore during our formal education, we learn what we are being taught and besides that, we also learn about how we are being taught. As students when we keep weighing teachers on their effective or ineffective ways of teaching, actually we comment on their teaching methodologies. Hence our ideas of good and bad teaching begin to develop during our own academic learning. 

2. We learn about dynamics of teaching and learning through our Teacher Education Program 

Entering teacher education program proves as a conscious effort and we begin to formally learn about how to teach and how to make long-lasting learning. Content knowledge is in relation to pedagogical skills and learner’s psychology is formally taught in the program. Our initial ideas of good or bad teaching are either strengthened or changed during these teacher education programs. 

3. We can keep learning to teach and bring improvements in our teaching methods throughout our career

Once we begin to teach in classroom, only then we realize the practical difficulties of teaching and learning process. Here we have to actually apply the skills that we have just learned.The organizational structure and institutional culture affect our professional development and we keep learning new skills, strategies and techniques to improve our teaching. But the improvement part depends upon the opportunities and support provided to teachers for their professional growth. 

I believed that a good teacher is the one who can make learning easier and whose teaching is equally effective for all students not just for the brilliant ones. This belief was developed during my own schooling. I counted those among good teachers who provided equal opportunities to all the learners and gave due attention and individual support to the students whenever they needed it. I reckon, I started learning to teach in my school and I learned equally from my good and bad teachers.  Whenever my class fellows were unable to understand anything, I used to assure them that I would explain it to them after the class is over. My teachers realized that I was doing it and then they begin to ask me to help those who were facing difficulties. Thus, when I was helping my fellows after class, I was actually imitating the methods of my good teachers. 

As a student my ideas about teaching were also being influenced by my home environment. My mother was also a teacher. She loved to teach and she was always praised by her colleagues and students. She had a real passion for teaching and I admired her devotion and dedication. Though in the beginning I wanted to be an engineer, I soon learnt that it wasn’t possible because I would not be allowed to live in a hostel to study in an Engineering university. Then after my graduation, when I showed my intention of becoming a teacher, my mother was very happy. The first thing I learnt from her was that a teacher has to be an ideal person in all aspects and she related it to our religious values. I was also aware that teaching is considered as one of the most sacred professions as it is graded next to prophethood. Knowing this view bolstered my belief that a teacher should have a perfect personality because a teacher is responsible for guiding students in the right direction not only in academics but in morality as well. 

My mother always encouraged me to become a teacher but she also warned me that if I do not become a responsible person, I have no right to be a teacher. She once asked me: “tell me, when should you punish students?” I thought for a while and then answered: “when they don’t perform well or when they don’t work.” That day my mother gave me a lesson for life : “no dear, the students who do not perform well or cannot do their work, they should never be punished; they need to be helped”.  Since then, I realized the role and responsibility of a teacher in a new way. I gained inspiration from my mother’s devotion towards her work. On the wedding day of my eldest brother, she went to work and when her school head asked her that why didn’t she take a leave on such an important day of her son’s life, she told him as she told us that she is needed more at her work because there are many people at home to make arrangements and the wedding event is at night, so she did not find it right to take leave on that day. 

After my graduation, my own school offered me a placement as a teacher but I got enrolled in teacher preparation program, B.Ed, which was a one year teacher education program offered at a regular college of education in 1995. During this program, I realized how difficult it is to be a good teacher as my teaching responsibilities outshadowed everything else . I enjoyed the courses of educational psychology and methods of teaching science and mathematics. I used to relate all the theories and skills with my own experiences as a student. I also thought at various occasions that why our teachers did not teach us the way we were being told to teach in these B.Ed courses. I could not understand that why there is a gap between what we are being taught and what actually happens in classrooms. I was really fascinated by all the theories and practices we learned and model lessons that we prepared for demonstrating teaching skills.  

After completing B.Ed program, I decided not to teach straight away. I was afraid that if I told something to my students and they interpreted it wrong, they would believe it and that would be my fault. Another fear was that I might not be able to teach them effectively. So, I needed to learn how to make my teaching equally meaningful and effective for all students. I knew that if I did not succeed in teaching then I would be responsible for wasting significant years of their lives. I wanted to know about  better techniques of teaching. During the B.Ed program, I developed the  feeling that more knowledge of child psychology can be helpful for me to become a better teacher. Thus, I decided to get enrolled in Masters in Applied Psychology and once I finished that, I began to teach at a school. I still believe that B.Ed and M.Sc Applied Psychology, both helped me a lot in learning to teach.

The institution from where I began my teaching career in 1998 was Army Public School in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. It was a school mainly for children of army officers. There were rules and clear policies for everything. Along with the restricted policies, the school also provided ample resources to create a rich learning environment. I began teaching Math to grade 4 and I was lucky to have a supportive environment which gave me confidence. My strong ideas about being perfect kept me on toes. I gave my days and nights to lesson planning and designing learning materials. I liked the tradition of delivering a moral lesson every morning. I used to talk to my students about their studies, not only about my own subject but about other subjects too and also about moral and ethical values. I gave coaching within school hours to those who faced difficulties in understanding Math. I wanted all of them to excel and I wanted myself to help them in any possible way. I had only taught for six months when I was asked to teach students of middle school (grade 6 to 8). Once my head of the department even asked me if I wanted to teach grade 9 and 10; I simply refused saying that it was a huge responsibility for which I was not ready then. 

From the very beginning, my focus was on effective teaching-learning process for everyone in my classroom and not only for the bright students. I always used the principles of psychology as well as the methods and strategies learnt in B.Ed to improve my teaching day by day. I believed in combining the theories of behaviorism, cognitivism and constructivism in a pragmatic manner. I used to apply maximum strategies and skills learned during B.Ed and even experimented new ways of teaching Math. I also wanted to build a strong relationship with my students. Knowledge of child development and principles of learning along with general information of human psychology helped me a lot in my teaching. I could communicate with my students easily. I had a very positive interaction with parents during parent-teacher meetings. In recognition of my efforts and good results, I was made a coordinator for curriculum planning within a year. I even developed a Math lab which was not at all common in Pakistani schools. I was also given the responsibility of mentoring newly inducted teachers. Though the school administration was very encouraging and supportive but I faced some challenges in convincing senior teachers to adopt innovative teaching styles. Newly recruited teachers had their own concerns. So I learnt a lot about how different novice and senior teachers think and behave. 

After teaching at school level for three years, I joined a program team which was

Intel® Teach to the Future Program. My own training was conducted in Lahore and Karachi and then as a senior trainer, I worked with K-12 teachers to integrate technology into the curriculum. It was a unique experience of one year in which I learnt innovative ideas of teaching as well as learnt a lot about how teachers from different institutions act and think differently about their teaching practices. 

Due to my enhanced interest in education, I also started my further studies through distance education at Allama Iqbal Open University (AIOU). I completed Masters in Educational Planning and Management (EPM) in the year 2002. The courses in MA-EPM and the experience as a senior trainer opened new horizons beyond classroom teaching within the field of education . Meanwhile, I served at a local private school which was kind of a franchise of a big chain of schools in Pakistan. There I was given the responsibility of management of high school. The owner of the school was a business man and always wanted the parents to remain satisfied so that they may not take their children to any other school and his business may keep running well. The moment I came to know that the top administration made changes in the result cards of students of my section, I resigned. I felt really upset and depressed knowing that how these people manipulate and deceive parents about the performance of their kids. In the same year I got admission in the Ed.D program in the University of London and went to the UK for that. Within few months, I had to return to Pakistan as my mother was seriously sick and it was hard to bear the expenses. I got a diploma in practitioners’ research and came back. 

After that, I got selected as a full time lecturer in Elementary Teacher Education at Allama Iqbal Open University (AIOU). It is one of the largest distance education universities around the world that has more than 50 regional offices and thousands of study centres across Pakistan and beyond. Teaching in AIOU from 2004 to 2009 was a very different experience than teaching in a formal institution as a visitng faculty at the same time. AIOU offers many programs for teachers’ education through distance education and has the largest enrolment around the country in th ese programs. Here I learnt that teaching can happen without formal classroom settings. AIOU programs are implemented through programmed learning materials in the form of books, non broadcasted audios and video lessons, broadcasted TV, Radio programs and internet along with a small portion of face-to-face teaching. As a lecturer/ program coordinator, my work was to develop course materials, conduct course workshops, host TV and Radio discussions and coordinate with the regional offices around the country for all teaching learning activities. For the first time I realized how important it is to have multiple media content. The interaction with teachers, educational planners and administrators all around the country, travelling and viewing schools in most diverse situations and sharing their unique problems and issues made me realize the elements existing outside the classroom that affect teaching-learning process indirectly. 

With my work as a pre-service teacher educator, I also worked with some Non Government Organizations voluntarily for conducting professional development courses and workshops. At AIOU, I remained closely involved in revising and planning  new curriculum of teacher education programs. In the year 2009, Higher Education Commission, in collaboration with USAID, developed a document of professional standards for teachers and with that it was recommended that teachers’ education programs should be redesigned into four year degrees like medical, engineering and other professional programs. Many universities in 2009 began the process of developing and offering four years’ Undergrad programmes in teacher education. Being involved in the planning of the new curriculum raised many questions in my mind about why and how should we change the curriculum to provide a stronger knowledge and develop better teaching skills. Do we just need to follow the developed nations’ examples or do we need a more localized system of teacher education? Within this phase of my professional life, I was selected as one of the Pre-STEP scholars who went to the USA for PhD. I was among those who were selected for a Ph.D in Curriculum, Instruction and Teacher Education at Michigan State University (MSU). Going to Michigan State University for my PhD in 2009 gave me a hope that I might be able to find the answers to some of the queries I had. Internal and external efficiency and effectiveness of teacher education programs were my major concerns. But after completing my coursework, I felt like whatever we were thinking and planning to change about teacher education in Pakistan, I was looking at the results of those changes in the States. The improvements we were thinking of e.g. accreditation, certification, licensing, offering four year degrees, mentoring, having alternative routes, developing a continuum of professional development etc, have already been done in the US and still teachers and teacher educators were facing very similar challenges and issues. So the challenge for me became bigger than I thought. During my PhD, I was able to study and research in the USA and Pakistan simultaneously. I presented papers at conferences and published some articles to address the issues and challenges in teachers’ education in both countries. During my research, I visited many teachers’ education institutions in Pakistan. I was able to see the institutional culture, diversity among various regions, and the gaps in policy planning and implementation more closely . Since my return to Pakistan  in 2014, after completing Ph.D., I have been involved in curriculum development of teachers’ education, research, and practice in the field of education.

Going through all the three stages of learning to teach (my schooling, teacher education, and work experience), I see myself in different roles at various times and I see my professional status changing over time, but I do not see my values changing much yet. When I was only a teacher at school, I assumed that student learning is my key responsibility. When I became a teacher educator, I still struggled that teachers’ education programs may develop the sense of responsibility among teacher candidates. Today I see myself not only in the role of teachers’ educator but also a curriculum planner and I still believe that the teachers in my country can play a significant role if they are well prepared to guide and facilitate student learning. As an educator, I evolved from a Math teacher to a university lecturer and eventually an educational planner. I learned that how education is affected by social changes. But I also learned that how it can bring social change. I always believed that teachers can be the agents of change. I still believe it, but with the passage of time and experience, I realized how many other factors are affecting the teaching-learning process than interaction among teachers and learners in a classroom merely. Therefore, when teachers are learning to teach, they need to be prepared for diverse situations. 

REFLECTING BACK AFTER TWO DECADES OF WORK EXPERIENCE

I taught at the secondary school level for almost four years. Then, I also taught at two different Universities as a faculty member in the teachers’ education department. The two universities I worked in were entirely different in their approaches and systemss of teachers’ education. One was a formal university that offered teachers’ preparation programs in the evening so that the students who were working in the morning could enroll in the programs easily. The other university was a distance education institution and offered teachers’ preparation programs through correspondence mode. The later one i.e. AIOU, gets a huge enrolment and many of the students  are working full time already. Throughout my experience as a teacher and also as a teacher educator, I observed that teacher education—as a form of professional education—is characterized by a number of tensions: teaching prospective teachers about relevant theories; helping them feel prepared for practice. This tension arises in various circumstances such as when you want to prepare teachers for schools which they are currently running and preparing the same teachers to be the agents of change.

If we try to analyze this tension, it has two ends and diverse reasons. On the one hand, teacher education programs need to focus on the needs of schools where these teachers will eventually go and work. For instance, in Pakistan, a large population of students go to public schools. These schools have large number of students and least facilities. On the other hand, teachers’ education programs are expected to provide teachers with those skills and knowledge that they may become the source of improving the quality of teaching and bringing a change into the traditional culture of schools. I witnessed this tension first of all as a  teacher of students and I also saw other newly inducted teachers struggling in the school where I was working and mentoring them. Then as a teachers’ educator, I have been trying to help newly recruited teachers to be prepared to face the challenges of being a change agent when they begin teaching in traditional public sector schools in particular. 

It was strange to see that in two different modes of education in the two universities where I taught, the issues remained the same, though the strategies for resolving these issues were completely different from one another. In the university where teachers’ education is offered through distance education, it is very difficult to directly communicate with them as they only meet the instructors at the end of the program for the workshops of only a few weeks, before their practice teaching. For the other group of students, most of whom were already working in schools, it is a bit easier of a challenge to change their perceptions and beliefs. The common feature of both programs is the practice teaching of six to eight weeks at the end of the program. 

Another factor contributing to the tension is the difference between content of teachers’ education programs and practices of teachers’ educators. The theories being taught are all very innovative and motivate teachers to adopt new techniques. However, most of the examples given in the text books are from ideal situations in which there should be only a small number of students and every child is given individual attention. Majority of the teachers never experience this during their own student lives. The teacher educators themselves are adopting the same old patterns of lecturing and passive learning in their own classrooms which are filled with large number of participants. Thus, prospective teachers only study about the change that is expected, but do not see it being practiced anywhere. 

Looking closely at the above mentioned differences, I can say that teachers, like any other educated person, go through an experience with their own phases of education. Hence, when they come to teachers’ education programs they already have developed their beliefs about teaching. In my opinion, any act of a trained teacher in a classroom setting is an outcome of accidental as well as intentional learning. The teachers bring their own life experiences into the classroom and once they begin to practice teaching, their “tacit knowledge, habits of mind, cultural scripts, and myths” (Polanyi 1966, Britzman 1986, Margolis 1987, Baerentsen and Trettvik 2000), all work along with the learned teaching techniques and theories. 

If I dig deeper to explore how these elements of accidental learning hinder the teachers to be prepared for the schools and to be change agents at the same time. “Tacit knowledge” as explained by Polanyi (1966) is that knowledge which cannot be put into words. When we are in a responsible position as a teacher in a classroom of young kids, we tend to do things which may give positive results. Teachers have less time to think and to give long explanations of what they do in the classroom. Therefore, they usually use their tacit knowledge instead of using the novel ideas and techniques they have learnt during the teachers’ preparation programs. They do it without even thinking about it. 

In new situations we tend to rely upon “pattern recognition and habits of mind” to adjust ourselves with the new environment and to move on. According to Margolis (1987), “subjectively patterns are of two contrasting sorts- sometimes they seem to concern context and sometimes they seem to concern action”.  Teachers often practice pattern recognition in the classroom and their mental habits direct them to do a lot of things which are not at all part of their formal teachers’ education. These patterns and mental habits help the teacher in saving time, and instead of experimenting new and novel ways of doing things, the teachers tend to follow the patterns already recognized by them. 

According to Britzman (1986) teachers’ “personal history” interacts with common “myths” of our culture to maintain current teaching practices. Newly appointed teachers feel that universities or teachers’ education programs only provide theories while classrooms are the place where reality strikes. Hence, when a new teacher is in classroom, the situation is described as “time of getting one’s feet wet” and as “sink or swim” situation. Some of the common myths about schools are “power struggle, fragmented curriculum, hierarchical order” and some misleading beliefs are that “everything depends upon the teacher, teacher is expert and teacher is self made”. Thus, they never try to look into the theories for finding best ways of improving student learning rather they only try to satisfy the school heads and conform to the prevailing culture. 

If previous learning_tacit knowledge, cultural myths, habits of mind or the process of appropriation_ helps teachers develop new and innovative ways of teaching and results in better student learning, then all these features can be taken as supportive for new teachers to become change agents. But the problem occurs when all this hinders the learning process or achievement of classroom objectives. For example, the teachers in Government Schools of Pakistan find it really difficult when they are told about interactive classrooms and active learning, as their “cultural scripts” are formatted in a way that in classroom, only the teacher speaks and students listen and this is what they witness in their own schooling as well as in teacher education programs. 

In my view, tacit knowledge and habits of mind can be useful if teachers’ education programs give an opportunity to the prospective teachers to look at them critically. Teacher education programs are full of courses that inform teachers of how things should be done but they never get a chance to practice them and challenge their previous learning. Sharing my experience, I have heard prospective teachers saying that physical punishment should be retained because this is how we were taught and this works best. “Little effort is made to explore the teachers’ beliefs and notions about basic educational issues” (Siddiqui, 2010). They rarely think back or reflect upon what they have been experiencing and practicing or believing about teaching. In the modes of distance education, “the self image of being a tiny screw in a big machine of education is further strengthened by the traditional workshops” and it does not let them think beyond the limits.  

Another way to look at the tension and to resolve it is through the activity theory. Knowledge, according to activity theorists, is generated through activities. They suggest that learning is a process of “appropriating” (Grossman, 2000 p.645) i.e. teachers adopt tools and practices for their own purposes. Even the learned techniques and tools are also modified and re-shaped with the passage of time through the process of appropriation. Teachers in a classroom apply various sets of tools as per the level of achievement of objectives and they keep adopting new combinations. This is the process of appropriation, which in the end creates new knowledge for the teachers to apply in practice. This can have both positive and negative outcomes.  Their experiences in classrooms can give them the best opportunities for learning to teach better. Merely teaching for many years does not necessarily help to improve practices. But supervised teaching in the early years can become an opportunity to learn further. A deeper thinking and analysis of classroom experiences can initiate an urge for improvement. 

For the purpose of actual learning to occur as a result of this critical thinking and analysis, teachers need to apply specific reasoning and inquiry skills. They need to act as researchers within their field of practice. If they collect data of their own experiences in any form, relate back to literature of teaching and learning, discuss with experts of the field, analyze their classroom interactions and find out weaknesses as well as strengths, such research practices can serve three major purposes. One is that teachers can become critical about their own practices; secondly, the hit and trial methods can be replaced with conscious efforts of improvement; and thirdly if such inquiries and researches are documented well, these can be useful sources for planning teacher education and professional development. 

While working at two teacher education institutions, I developed a framework of preparing teachers to unlearn and relearn teaching for improving classroom instruction. In my framework first of all teachers need to rethink their assumptions about teaching and learning. Teachers’ beliefs about learning are often limited by their own experiences with conventional teaching practices. Before asking them to change these beliefs, they must be provoked to question their own experiences and the beliefs that are founded and then introduced to better ideas. But if the knowledge sharing comes in the form of “Kitchen Recipes” as elaborated by Huberman (1983), then it does not evoke the analytical rethinking that is essentially required for changing teachers’ beliefs and practices. Darling-Hamonds and Snowden Baratz (2007) stressed that teacher preparation programs should move from foundational theory to practice, giving teachers the chance to learn from practice concurrently. Teachers should be constantly applying what they are learning about teaching and reflect. Such analytical re-thinking needs the “transition from teachers to researcher” as mentioned by Labaree (2003). Such transition then includes “the Problem of Conflicting Worldviews between Teachers and Researchers”, to enable teachers to develop a researcher’s world view. As Labaree mentioned, three transitions are necessary: “From the Personal to the Intellectual, From the Particular to the Universal and From the Experiential to the Theoretical”. But a process for Narrowing the Cultural Divide will again ask for some formal setting or support for teachers to enable them to go through this process. Teacher education programs, if designed for these purposes, can help teachers go through this transition but then, research, reflection and analysis are to be embedded within the pedagogical skills training.    

The second essential feature is that teachers must learn to collaborate with co-teachers and school heads. The closed-door culture of classrooms needs to be changed into collaborative teamwork. This takes me into the notion of situated learning. Rather than looking at learning as the acquisition of certain forms of knowledge, Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger (1991) have described it in terms of “social relationships – situations of co-participation”. According to them, initially, people have to join communities and learn at the “periphery”. As they become more competent, they become more involved in the main processes of the particular community. They move from “legitimate peripheral participation to full participation” (Lave and Wenger 1991). Learning is, thus, not seen as the acquisition of knowledge by individuals merely, but as a process of “social participation”. Schools need to enhance a culture of team work. Teachers are needed to be encouraged to share their good and bad experiences. Sharing of experience should not only be one way, i.e. senior teachers telling the new ones how to do things, but it should be a two way process so that the new teachers may confidently share new and innovative ideas with them. 

Referring back to the teacher education programs, in the third feature of my framework I included supervised classroom teaching. University teachers need to work in close collaboration with the schools during this phase. If teachers are left alone and go through "Legitimate peripheral participation" by themselves, they might or might not be able to think and apply their skills beyond specific situations. But a supervised internship can provide a way to think analytically and to speak about the process of meeting new challenges of new situations. This is also the time where a mentoring model can help teachers shifting their concerns from self to student learning, but this mentoring needs an input and encouragement from the school administration as well; because teachers tend to concern more about their evaluation which moves their concerns more towards self. All the above tasks are essential in learning to teach and must be completed at the same time to be effective.  But to my understanding, the expert level as mentioned by Scardemalia and Bereiter (1989), where the teacher, instead of avoiding, begins to confront the core problems in four conceptions of teaching i.e “teaching as cultural transmission, teaching of trainable skills, teaching as the fostering of natural development and teaching as producing conceptual change”; cannot be achieved in short term supervised practice teaching or mentoring models. It requires continuous professional development. 

At a formal institution where teachers were working in schools in the morning and coming to attend the teacher preparation program in the evening, it was easier to develop their analytical and reflective thinking. I asked them to write essays on their own practices and then share it in the classroom. Then we used to relate various practices with the theories of teaching and learning that we were studying. Some of the student teachers developed interesting classroom models and instructional models which were presented as their final projects. It was very encouraging to see a change occurring among some of the students’ beliefs and practices. But a major learning for me was that it depends a lot upon the schools where they work. Not every school allowed teachers to do such innovative work. Teachers had to face much resistance and were not supported at all. Limited resources at schools was another major constraint, when it came to the use of technology. With large number of students in classroom, teachers needed special skills to introduce interactive classroom practices. 

In the distance education mode, the challenge remained difficult. I could not directly communicate with the student teachers and could not apply the strategies I could use in the other institutions. There is a whole network of tutors who meet student teachers at study centers around the country. I began with refresher courses and training of tutors. These tutors were mostly senior school teachers. The only source of information was the text books we sent to them and to the student teachers. We also have some supporting TV programs but people do not necessarily watch them. Coming from a background of guided and directed learning, it is hard for people to get into the habit of self-guided and self-directed learning. It is very difficult to develop critical and analytical thinking. I revised many of the textbooks that were being sent to the prospective teachers and tutors. In all the books, I included interactive activities which may help teachers to develop critical discourse. I also revised the patterns of course assignments, which was usually based on reading and writing only, I transformed them into an inquiry-based approach and introduced online assignments, so that people get into the habit of using technology and online resource for learning. Then, I also succeeded in offering a course on Critical thinking and reflective practices for all teacher education programs at AIOU. I believe this course is the first one of its kind in Pakistan that offers a possible way of interacting with the student teachers directly and enable them to interact with each other and with their teachers in an open communication without hesitating about hierarchical structures of teacher education. I designed and offered the course, so that classroom interactions become more and more research-based and break the hegemony of power structures prevailing in traditional classrooms.