REFLECTION FOR FORMATIVE FEEDBACK BIOGRAPHY, A WAY OF PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

REFLECTION FOR FORMATIVE FEEDBACK

BIOGRAPHY, A WAY OF PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

Darvesh Karim

Assistant Instructor

Professional Development Center, North

University Road, Konodass, Gilgit.

Ph. No: (+92) 05811-454132-4 Ext: 3017

Fax No: (+92) 05811-454135

Cell No: (+92) 03465419307

Email (Official): darveshkarim@pdcn.edu.pk

Email (Private): dk_hunzai@yahoo.com, darvesh.karim@gmail.com

Online Blogs: www.dkhunza.blogspot.com; www.scribd.com/dk_hunzai

The assignment in which I was supposed to write a biography of one of my colleagues; to be honest, initially I was only aware about the meaning of biography but had not its sufficient knowledge. During class interactions, facilitators’ effective and thought provoking explanations, reading some relevant material and Oxford Advanced Learners’ Dictionary guided me through to unpack this notion. Now according to my understanding biography is a description of a person’s life written by another person. The person who writes a biography is called the "biographer" while the person written about is known as the "biographee". Biography is derived from the Greek words ‘bios’ meaning "life", and ‘graphy’ meaning "write". Biography is an effective and interesting type of literature, based on the written stories of individual lives. It reflects the narration of a person's life including the elements that make up a person’s past for the purpose of defining and understanding him/her and to reflect or replicate when ever necessary by ourselves as teachers.

Initially the concept of biography was based on seeing and investigating the past through the eyes of historic or notable persons to use that expertise as guiding rules, but now, not only the lives of dignified individuals but every individual (teacher) is being recorded and used as a tool for the professional development in education. Because according to my learning through the current course, every individual has unique experience and distinctive story in-terms of educational journey, either getting his/her own education or as a teacher. During my accomplishment for the assignment to collect the required information from the ‘biographee’, I came to know the cultural and social settings, background, experiences, challenges and encountering strategies for these challenges, cultural attachments, failures and their implications, successes, critical incidents which cause major behavioral/emotional changes, and other personal information in the form of a narrative study. All this information is valuable for the professional development of a teacher as it focuses on the recording and relating of another person's life for our own development. To articulate a biography, data collection can be done through interviews, formal/informal discussions, document analysis, and photograph analysis. I used formal/informal discussion and interviews for the data collection.

The major learning from biographies in education is the development of learning to teach and handle day-to-day affairs of school, keeping those practical experiences in mind as now teaching is known a skill which needs to be sharpened according to the demand and needs of the time. Through biography, I learnt the approaches to professional development which provided the learning needs of teachers at differing ages/stages, the principles which guide for planning based upon the thoughts exercised by the teachers.

Biography can be used for conversing with colleagues and various public places about the topic of teacher professional development by visualizing the teacher’s biography in mind, because a well-designed biography, provides the logical, coherent and practical foundation for developing a wide-ranging vision about teaching and leading.  It can also provide an overview for a school leader to consider how beginner teachers walk through their induction years, experienced teachers through the next two to three years in order to achieve the stages of professional expertise.

Finally, I am fully convinced that writing and reading biographies are the sources to enhance the professional development as a teacher, because we can perform well keeping all those experimented and validated experiences of different teachers in mind.