Review and action bring the improvement we seek
From initial education to registration and disciplinary practices, the College’s work benefits from regular review, recommendations and a commitment to action. Reflection is the starting point for improvement.
by Michael Salvatori, OCT
As hallways and gyms echo with student voices and music in preparation for holiday concerts, I am mindful of the many hours of rehearsal that teachers, students and parents put in to get it just right. Once more with feeling … a little more energy … project your voice … all in the interest of improving the performance.
The goal of continuous improvement is firmly embedded in our education culture. As teachers, we engage in a myriad of ongoing professional learning activities. We attend workshops to learn new strategies on topics like differentiated instruction or assessment for learning. We attend conferences to engage in dialogue with our colleagues. We participate in research and consider how to best enhance our practice. We continuously seek to improve our teaching practice so that we are able to provide better opportunities for learning to our students.
Your College also considers continuous improvement an essential goal.
Our students themselves demonstrate daily their own commitment to continuous improvement. Just consider how eager students are to receive a test back, to see their progress during the year as a B becomes an A. Or consider the questions they ask to know what they need to do in a writing assignment to move from level 3 to 4.
Your College also considers continuous improvement an essential goal. Our recent work in the final phase of our multi-year review of teacher qualifications is evidence of our commitment to getting better. In this last phase, the College has made recommendations on new pathways in initial teacher education, such as the potential for a single four- or five-year degree in teacher education or the possibility at the intermediate or senior level of taking one teaching option in general education and one in technological education.
Your feedback helps us to improve continually. When we develop Additional Qualification guidelines, we rely on your initial thoughts and then post our drafts to our web site for your further consideration and feedback. Only after we’ve worked and reworked the guidelines based on your involvement do we move forward to final recommendations. Your opinions are critical to our capacity to ensure that AQ courses remain pertinent, current, and serve your needs in the classroom.
While reflection, analysis, direction and hard work produce results, time is the true scorekeeper.
We are also following through on the work that we have already done in making our registration practices fair and accessible. The College continues to work with the Ontario Fairness Commission to review and improve our practices to make sure our information about what it takes to become an OCT is clear.
We don’t limit our ideas for improvement to those we think of ourselves. As a body acting in the public interest and living in the public eye, we ask independent reviewers to look at our practices too and to help us improve. This past summer we commissioned Patrick LeSage, former Chief Justice of the Ontario Superior Court, to review our processes in the area of investigations and hearings. We look forward to receiving his report in May 2012 and to finding out what we do well and what we can do better to protect students.
Continuous improvement is cumulative. While reflection, analysis, direction and hard work produce results, time is the true scorekeeper. Overnight success is rare. But by always looking to improve, we do.
