College of Teachers Breaks New Ground With Standards of Practice
December 10 1998
TORONTO For the first time in Ontario, the teaching profession has
specific standards of practice that will be used to accredit, develop and improve
professional learning programs and experiences for future and current teachers,
principals and supervisory officials, Donna Marie Kennedy, Chair of the Ontario
College of Teachers has announced.
The College is the self-governing body responsible for licensing and regulating
the teaching profession in the province. At its meeting today, the College's
Council approved in principle the Standards of Practice
for the Teaching Profession.
The key elements of the standards include a commitment to student learning,
professional knowledge, teaching practice, leadership and community and ongoing
professional learning.
"The standards highlight the skills, values and knowledge that make Ontarios
teaching profession unique they define the profession in a way that it had
never been defined before in Ontario," said Kennedy. "The College will use
the standards when accrediting programs at the faculties of education and other
professional learning programs to ensure that they are in line with the common
understanding we now have of what it means to be a teacher."
The standards of practice for the teaching profession were developed from
national and international research on professional standards, and almost two
years of wide-ranging consultation with members of the College, the public,
and a broad range of community and interest groups. Some of the research was
conducted as an on-line discussion on the College's web site.
The standards approved by the College Council today will go through a further
validation process that includes consultation with over 2,500 stakeholders
and other members of the public, College membership information and consultation
through the College's publication Professionally Speaking, updates and
comments on the College's web site and case studies. The deadline for comments
is April 30, 1999.
The College expects the final version of the standards of practice for the
profession to be considered by Council in the fall of next 1999.
