Japan’s innovative approach to professional learning

The high performance of Japanese students, as demonstrated on international tests, is well-known, but the professional learning of Japanese teachers has received less attention. Ruth Ahn, Yasuko Shimojima, Hisayoshi Mori, and Shigeru Asanuma describe the professional development requirements for teachers across their careers. Novice teachers are required to engage in at least 300 hours professional learning, with additional learning requirements at the 10-year mark and again for license renewal every 10 years. These learning programs received mixed reviews from teachers. However, teachers consistently praised the more informal learning that took place in shokuin shitsu, or teachers’ room. This space serves as a home base for teachers throughout the day, and as they move in and out of the space, they are able to seek advice and support for pressing problems. This collegial learning benefited not just beginners but also veteran and midcareer teachers.

Lived Stories of Mid-Career Teachers: Their Struggles with Millennial Learners in the Philippines

This study aimed to explore the teaching-learning congruence between mid-career teachers and millennial learners which remains a global challenge. After 15-30 years of teaching, they face issues on self-absorption with great desire to develop themselves instead of mentoring others. In the Philippines, they resort to printed learning materials, while the millennials are highly addicted to technology and ecopies. Self-reflected learning is dominant in mid-career teachers, while collaborative learning works well with millennial learners. The said divide in their teaching and learning strategies results to constant struggles among mid-career teachers. In Australia and some countries, there is scanty literature on midcareer teachers. This phenomenological case study in a Philippine teaching university unraveled their day-to-day struggles as they coped and bridged the teaching-learning divide. Results can usher in a paradigm shift in mid-career teachers teaching as well as produce policy enablers with capacity building to manage millennials as top priority in the Philippines, in Asia and abroad.