Professional Development Oct 8th, 2019 Mina HIRANO
Title: “What makes a good teacher? – the development of teacher’s professional identity-”
Summary of the presentation:
Firstly, the audience were asked to reflect a teacher/teachers they liked or inspired when they werestudents. Then, talk about those teachers with group of two or three people. Then, with the same groupmembers, the audience discussed “What makes good teachers” and wrote down keywords they came up
with on the white board. The audience came up with various keywords such as “passionate”, “patient”,“thinks outside the box”, “wants to learn”, “approachable”, “relationships”, “knowledgeable”, and “sense ofhumor”.
The speaker then introduced “onion model”(See Figure 1) which is an adaptation of Bateson’s model(Korthagen, 2004). According to Korthagen, this model has been used for teacher education both for novice
and experienced teachers to help them develop effective professional identities. The model has six levels:the environment, behavior, competencies, beliefs, identity and mission. The speaker alternated the last level“mission” to the word “deepest inspiration”. Then, each level of the model was briefly explained by usingexamples. (See Table 1 and Table 2 which were created by the speaker based on Korthagen).
Finally, the speaker shared the challenge she had as a first year teaching CORE English especially CORE
English 3 and 4 with deeper topics. The speaker explained how she used the “onion model” to understandsome of the negative self-image as a teacher which affected her competence and behavior. Then, as shecorrected such image and also explored deeper beliefs and inspiration as a teacher, she was able to come up
with more interesting lessons.
At the end of the presentation, the speaker mentioned that she had given questionnaires to her students
in order to know their perspectives of “being a good teacher”. The results are going to be presented in thenext PD. The presentation was closed with one quotation: “Consciously, we teach what we know;
unconsciously, we teach who we are ” (Hamachek 1999, p.209).
References
Korthagen, F. (2004) In search of the essence of a good teacher: towards a more holistic approach in teacher
education. Teaching and Teacher Education, 20 (1), 77-97.
Hamacheck, D. (1999) Effective teacher: what they do, how they do it, and the importance of selfknowledge. In R.P. Lipka, & T.M. Brinthaupt (Eds.), The role of self in teacher development (pp.189224). Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.

Figure 1: The “onion model” (Korthagen, 2004)

Table 1: Six levels of the “onion model”
Levels of the “onion model”

Meaning/Example

1.Environment

the class, the students, the school, problems in the classroom

2. Behaviour

actual behavior of the teacher towards problems/students

3. Competencies

skills/knowledge of the teacher(e.g. competency to show empathic understanding )4. Beliefs

the teacher’s beliefs that determine their competencies(e.g. a belief that teaching is transmission of knowledge)

5. Identity

what kind of teacher does one wants to be/ what kind of role does
the teacher want to take in the class

6. Mission/ “Deepest Inspiration”

what inspires you most as human being/ meaning of one’s own
existence

Table 2: Six questions to develop professional identity
Levels of the “onion model”

Questions

1.EnvironmentWhat do I have to deal with it?

2. Behaviour

What do I do?

3. Competencies

What can I do?

4. Beliefs

Why do I do that? What belief lead me do that?

5. Identity

Who am I (as a teacher)? What role do I want to take in the class?

6. Mission/ “Deepest Inspiration”

What is my deepest inspiration as a teacher/person?
What is my ultimate goal of teaching/ life?