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This paper reports the results from a second-order action research process, accompanying a continuing professional development (CPD), the Pedagogy and Subject Didactics Programme (PFL). PFL is a 2-year-postgraduate university course that focuses primarily on subject didactics, action research methods and peer group learning. This study accompanied PFL 2015–2017 with 20 graduates. The main objectives of the evaluation were to verify and maintain a good quality of the input and the possibility to bring this input into the daily work of teachers. Through the formative process orientation, we as program administrators were enabled to integrate many insights directly into the further development of the course. The described process shows how and to what extent PFL could be positively shaped by feedback from teachers and our reflection on it. In this way we were able to meet the needs of the participants without losing sight of PFL's goal. Targeted interventions enabled us to achieve most of the two main objectives of the study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the participatory approach used by a group of academic support staff in evaluating an academic professional development resource designed to support e-learning and teaching. The resource, titled Designing Electronic Learning and Teaching Approaches (DELTA), showcases examples of electronic learning and teaching approaches developed at Monash University, Australia. The evaluation included individual and collective reflection, dialogue and action, drawing on the features of participatory action research. This paper explores the value of this critically reflective, participatory approach for evaluation to improve the use of new learning technologies, demonstrating how it provided a clear decision-making framework for iterative improvement of the DELTA site by identifying consensus items for action and recording other items for later consideration, while also contributing to team members' own professional development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study reported on in this paper is set in the context of a national programme of professional development for primary teachers in the Republic of Ireland which has been in operation since 1999 and finished in 2008. The paper explores the acquisition and interpretation by teachers of the elements of the reform. The authors consider the extent to which the professional development experiences facilitated change in teachers' knowledge and if the teachers interpreted this in the way expected by policy-makers. The theoretical basis to the study draws on previous research that conceptualises teacher learning/knowledge acquisition and the change process as being dependant on an interwoven mix of factors, including teacher, school and policy-level contexts and characteristics. To a large degree the findings of this study do not deviate wildly from this prior work, which suggests that policy-makers and planners of CPD programmes, despite their best intentions, still need to be cognisant of such factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the idea of thinking skills approaches as tools for pedagogical inquiry and in so doing seeks to develop the link between the promotion of inquiry‐based learning, which is a central tenet of thinking skills, and inquiry‐based teaching as an approach to professional development and school improvement. The first part of the paper examines the impact of teaching thinking skills on teachers by drawing upon a systematic review of research evidence. The second part of the paper sets the characteristics identified in the context of research into teachers’ development and considers the contribution of a pedagogy based on thinking skills approaches to continuing professional development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over recent years increasing attention has been given to professional development for aspiring heads in the UK and elsewhere. In Scotland, the Scottish Qualification for Headship (SQH) was devised as a means of preparing for headship. This paper draws from the national evaluation of the SQH in order to assess the extent to which this programme appears to be achieving the development of the kinds of leadership qualities which have been identified as significant in recent research. However, the paper does not focus simply on the development of the qualities of the individual candidate but looks at the impact of the SQH in the wider professional setting, particularly in the schools where candidates are working. It appears that the programme has been effective in many instances in engaging with the dynamic emotional and professional dimensions of teacher development and in contributing to school improvement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The teaching profession is built upon the initial education on relevant pedagogical faculties, and further upgraded and improved through continuing education through various forms of professional development. The competencies of the teacher for realization of educational activity represents the content and function of its professional obligations. Global taxonomy of teacher's competences are consisted of pedagogical competencies and professional competencies. The pedagogical competence of the teacher has one main characteristic - it enables the organization and realization of educational process. The professional competences of the teacher, in fact, represent the competence and commitment to implement the teaching. The subject of research in this paper is the professional competences of the teachers. The research is focused on the identification of the professional competencies of the teacher, with the possibility of extension and deepening of the established taxonomy with new competences. The professional qualifications of teachers are closely related to the profile and characteristics of the educational system. Partial and global changes in educational systems have led to changes in competence of the teacher. In order to establish more successful future projection of the impact of teacher's competences on all school activities and arising results, the proposed changes will focus on: improving the quality of working conditions in primary schools - the basic requirements to equip with modern educational technology; changes in curriculum placement; greater efficiency of educational work; systematic assessment of the teacher, which will result in raising its position in society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we report on an arts-infused model of teaching in a postgraduate diploma programme for trainee secondary (high) school teachers in Scotland. Since the academic session 2001- 2002, those training to be subject specialist teachers in secondary (high) schools at the University of Strathclyde have, as a compulsory part of their course, the option to study an 'Area of Professional Development' (APD). This class offers the student teacher the opportunity to build on existing skills or develop new interests. Options in the APD programme range from Education for Citizenship to Learning in the Outdoors. The authors developed a class that focuses on using creative contexts as a starting point for learning and teaching activity for young people aged 12 - 18. Central aims of the class include working in groups, problem solving and setting the learning experience 'in context'. In designing the class the writers drew on previous experience of arts-infused delivery with trainee social workers (1998-2000). The challenge for secondary teachers is to develop creative contexts for learning within their own subject area: contexts that will deliver key subject content and foster development of 'core skills'. (www.sqa.org.uk) In designing the class, the authors anticipated the new statutory framework for schools (A Curriculum for Excellence, 2004) and the four capacities set out by the Scottish Government: Successful learners; Confident individuals; Responsible citizens; Effective contributors www.curriculumforexcellencescotland.gov.uk) They wanted to explore the function of intelligence in problem solving (Gardner 1999) and develop ' creativity fostering teachers' as defined by Cropley (2001). The paper will present examples of student responses together with summary evaluation data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines what we can learn from recent experience of National Strategies and teacher research, with a view to improving the development and warranting of good practice in teaching. Official evaluations report that the authoritative stance of National Strategies has failed to engage many teachers thoughtfully, so restricting deeper professional development and educational improvement. Likewise, recent stocktaking indicates that teacher research has emphasised professional development over knowledge creation, and effecting changes over examining rationales. This paper argues that research‐informed development of good practice could be strengthened through ensuring that National Strategies become exemplary in warranting their recommendations for practice, and in providing support for corresponding teacher research. Developing good practice in teaching calls for stronger interaction between teacher expertise in realising such practice and researcher expertise in analysing it. Methods of lesson study exemplify how teacher thinking about good practice can be not just shared, but codified, and informed by scholarly knowledge; while methods of design research hold promise as a rigorous means of developing learning resources, supporting pedagogies and guiding theories to underpin improvement of practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes a study into the implementation within two Spanish primary schools of an inquiry-based curricular project entitled Exploring Our World (ages 6-12). Taking the form of two case studies, it offers a description of the two participating schools and the development of the project within them. Particular attention is given to the conceptions, difficulties, obstacles and facilitative factors which influenced the teachers' attempts to introduce inquiry-oriented practices into their classrooms. The study has a markedly qualitative focus and aims to provide an insight into the experiences of those involved, with a view to informing other groups interested in following this approach. Among the conclusions that can be drawn from the project, most notable are the influence of the level of professional development on the introduction of inquiry-based approaches and the absence of a single model of implementation; each initiative is necessarily subject to its particular configuration of context and stakeholders. Nevertheless, all those participating in this initiative were in agreement that involvement in projects of this type is favourable to teacher development and the quality of teaching. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a qualitative study about how teachers entering the profession at different times over the last five decades made sense of their professional lives and continuing professional development (CPD) experiences against the backdrop of the CPD policy infrastructure and wider educational context in Hong Kong. The life history method was used. The findings of the study show that teachers' self-directed professional development was driven by a commitment to the moral purposes of teaching, characterized by their active agency in professional knowledge construction, and supported by facilitating organizational conditions in schools. The study also reveals that fierce competition among individuals and schools, intensification of work, stress, uncertainty and alienation on the part of teachers evidenced the de-humanizing effects of an increasingly managerialist and market-oriented approach to school education. Implications for educational leaders at policy and school levels and teachers will be discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Academics are experiencing pressures related to accountability and appraisal, excellence, effectiveness and efficiency. These pressures can intensify when the role of postgraduate supervisor is added to an already crowded professional and personal life. Although support and discussion groups for supervisors have been used in professional development programmes, merely ‘confessing’ concerns and inadequacies has limited value. Supervisors need processes that enable them to explore and analyse the complexity of the postgraduate experience. The postmodern, narrative approach to groupwork outlined in this paper—the story-dialogue approach—invites supervisors to examine the metaphors and myths that surround the postgraduate research experience. Story-dialogue groupwork opens to supervisors the possibility for change in their professional practice through greater depth of understanding of the postgraduate experience and the supervisory relationship in that context. It moves the focus of professional development programmes from training to reflective practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay reflects on the challenges of thinking about scale-of making sense of phenomena such as continuous professional development (CPD) at the system level, while holding on to detail at the finer grain size(s) of implementation. The stimuli for my reflections are three diverse studies of attempts at scale-an attempt to use ideas related to professional development in two different countries, the story of how research did or did not frame a nationwide attempt at undergirding CPD, and a fine-grained study of the quality of a dozen mentors' implementation of CPD. The challenge is to 'see the forest for the trees,' to be able to situate such diverse studies within a larger framework. The bulk of this article is devoted to offering such a framework, the teaching for robust understanding (TRU) framework, which characterizes five fundamentally important dimensions of powerful learning environments. At the most fine-grained level, TRU applies to classrooms, establishing goals for instruction. But, more generally, it applies to all learning environments, and this characterizes important aspects of CPD. The TRU framework thus provides a unifying frame within which one can situate the studies in this volume. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We provide an overview of EarlyStatistics, an online professional development course in statistics education targeting European elementary and middle school teachers. The course facilitates intercultural collaboration of teachers using contemporary technological and educational tools. An online information base offers access to all of the course content and resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Seeking to enhance efforts to diversify the teaching profession, this article centers the educational experiences of high school Students of Color. Using a Critical Race Theory framework, this study examines the relationship between Students' of Color school experiences and their perceptions of the teaching profession. Findings reveal that these students perceive the teaching profession as a boring, undervalued, and white profession, and that conversations about pursuing college and exploring a career in teaching are absent from the classroom or presented as only the purview of white students. Race conscious recommendations to encourage and support Students of Color to pursue college and to explore a teaching career are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study was to examine the landscape of continuing professional development (CPD) for Korean secondary physical education (PE) teachers. Specifically, teachers' perceptions of the characteristics of CPD, factors determining the effectiveness of CPD, and outcomes of CPD were examined. Data were collected from online questionnaires (n = 251) and in-depth interviews with secondary PE teachers (n = 20). The quantitative data were analyzed using SPSS 20.0 and the qualitative data were subjected to content analysis using NVivo11. The findings revealed that Korean PE-CPD was characterized as (a) excessively institution-based, (b) distorting teachers' patterns of CPD participation depending on years of teaching experience, and (c) emphasizing sport skills development. The teachers described an effective PE-CPD program as having (a) novel, relevant, and practical content, (b) an active, interactive, and collaborative structure, and (c) a knowledgeable, open, and risk-taking program facilitator. CPD was perceived to have predominantly proximal outcomes, such as the acquisition and application of knowledge and skills for immediate use, indicating that the traditional format of CPD is limited in promoting teachers' continuous learning. The discussion addresses teachers' agentic actions through the processes of interpretation, decision-making and perception, framed by values and teacher education traditions within a Korean social context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An analogy between teaching and the performance of open sport skills is made. Common elements of perception, cue discrimination, and strategy selection are explained and illustrated. The implications of viewing teaching as an open skill are discussed, and specific suggestions are made for application to teacher training programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article addresses a unique effort to implement a summer residential program that identifies and inspires potential educators by reaching down the pipeline to academically talented high school students. The primary goal of the program was to introduce participants to various dimensions of urban teaching. The research and evaluation for the program was designed to include diverse forms of data (quantitative and qualitative) from both staff and program participants. This study's findings indicate that participants became more informed about prevalent issues in under-resourced urban schools, better understood the need for teachers' ongoing professional development and felt more comfortable in urban schools. A number of the focal participants also expressed sustained or increased aspirations for teaching youth in urban schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Graduate Teaching Assistants (TAs) need effective, appropriate professional development opportunities that offer both meaningful foundations and strategically useful tools for their teaching. This study examined and explored the perceptions of TAs with regard to the nature, content, and design characteristics of training and development for teaching in the research university. A group of 210 graduate teaching assistants at a research university reported their perceptions of a range of design elements of training sessions and activities. TAs perceived that training contributed to their learning and development, promoting skills and strategies helpful for their teaching. More focused, strategic sessions received higher overall scores than more general foundational sessions, though strategic sessions were grounded in the more foundational ones. Design features that TAs reported most significantly contributed to their development were: expertise of speakers, structural design of events, and quality of support materials. Eighty percent of TAs reported intentions to continue learning about instructional theory and practice. Findings include consistency with some previous research-based principles of training and development, but also raise new questions regarding TAs' needs and how to address them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why do teachers and other educational practitioners become researchers of their own practice? Is their primary motivation one of self-development, the attainment of a doctoral qualification, or the desire to improve outcomes for their learners? Practitioner research is often believed to bring about transformation, particularly in its more collaborative action forms. In these forms of research, the focus is on improvement through cycles of intervention in a process that goes beyond evaluation of one's own practice toward engaging others in organisational change. Do those who sign up to doctoral study with a strong emphasis on practitioner research seek such transformation? Where do they see the potential for transformation located; in their own classrooms, in changes to educational systems or in raising the awareness of policy makers? These questions are explored through the voices of students enrolled on a professional doctorate programme in Learning and Learning Contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reports and interprets the findings of a study of headteachers' views and perceptions of continuing professional development (CPD) provision and their ongoing CPD needs and priorities, carried out in 2007 in Scotland, involving headteachers from the primary and secondary sectors. Topic areas in which headteachers generally were most likely to perceive a need for professional development included: dispersing leadership (empowerment, coaching and building leadership capacity); management skills concerning underachieving staff and learning and teaching; time for reflection (encompassing holistic needs). A need for more time and opportunities for reflection is a theme that pervaded the responses of headteachers, with reflection including cognitive and technical, as well as affective, ethical and spiritual aspects. New headteachers emphasised the technical challenges of the post, enhancing knowledge and understanding of leadership, sustaining/rebuilding confidence, and improved support and information. Established headteachers, whilst also highlighting knowledge and understanding of leadership, particularly emphasised the value of sabbaticals, secondments and time for reflection. In discussing the findings, the article considers the importance of learning through 'disturbance' of taken-for-granted assumptions, of a holistic approach to professional development, and of thinking and acting systemically. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on my experiences as a former classroom teacher making the transition to teacher education, this study examines how my vision of teacher education developed over the course of my first three years as a graduate teaching assistant in a social studies education program in the United States. A qualitative self-study methodology was used to identify and describe sources of tension and growth that contributed to the evolution of my classroom teacher understandings as I forged a distinct vision for teacher education. My vision of teacher education was informed by completing graduate coursework, engaging in the work of teacher education, interacting and collaborating with peers, and studying my practice as it developed and unfolded. Throughout the article, I discuss the potential of self-study methodology to encourage new teacher educators to examine both the features and motivations behind their practice, as well as the effects of this examination on the development of a vision of teacher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers suggestions for finding balance in the academic career. It notes that factors involving professional development include finding a mentor, teaching, research, and service. It suggests that as an advanced faculty member, it is necessary to be concerned about how it fells being evaluated. However, it notes that it is advisable to work with undergraduate co-authors to broaden research programs and to find service that is enjoyable to do if an individual uses his teaching time to get the maximum benefit of his effort.

The article reports on the impact of the initial and continuous teachers' professional development in preparing the teachers to understand and cope with the complexities of education. A systematic approach together with a convincing set of incentives, is found to be the only way to attract, prepare and retain the best possible people in the teaching profession.

This study explores three teachers’ perceptions and developments as a result of experiencing learning and teaching in a knowledge‐building community (KBC). To understand the teachers’ views, in‐depth interviews were conducted. The transcripts were coded using a grounded theory approach. The findings indicate that KBC is reportedly viewed by the participants as a meaningful form of professional development that could promote them to move towards more constructivist‐oriented teaching. However, the KBC model is not easily adoptable in local school settings. The teachers also reported that time constraints due to the need to ‘cover the syllabus’ were the main barrier to progress. Systemic effort in co‐ordinating sustainable change is therefore needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article compares the experiences of small groups of newly qualified teachers before and after the introduction of statutory induction in England in 1999. It examines how far some of the beneficial outcomes of a structured induction programme advocated by Glickman and Bay (1990) have been evidenced by the experiences of the post‐induction NQTs, compared with their pre‐induction counterparts. It is argued that there is evidence that structured induction has resulted in increased reflection; improved collegiality, openness and communication; greater teacher autonomy, self‐growth and personal efficacy; but that a climate of ‘accountability’ and ‘raising standards’ has served to add to the workload of NQTs and thus increase, not lessen, anxiety and burnout. It contends that if teacher retention rates are to be improved, there is a need to develop individualised induction support, rooted in professional education, rather than training. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reports on an ongoing longitudinal investigation of the influence of professional development on teaching strategies. The study has so far identified models of type and duration of professional development activity for a national sample of primary subject co-ordinators and secondary heads of department of English, mathematics and science. This article reports on participants' changes in type of professional development activity over time, extent of subject content emphasis of the development activity and subsequent changes to teaching practice effected by involvement in a longer term professional development activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the practice of teacher education, most would agree that critical reflection in and on the process of learning to teach and the activities of teaching play a central role in teachers' professional development. Using Vygotskian sociocultural theory, we examine how narrative inquiry functions as a culturally developed tool that mediates teachers' professional development. We analyzed narratives written by three teachers of English as a second/foreign language set in three different instructional contexts. Our analysis suggests an interwoven connection between emotion and cognition, which drove these teachers to search for mediational tools to help them externalize their experiences. The activity of engaging in narrative inquiry created a mediational space where teachers were able to draw upon various resources, such as private journals, peers and `expert' or theoretical knowledge, that allow them to reconceptualize and reinternalize new understandings of themselves as teachers and their teaching activities. The intersection of experiential and `expert' knowledge provided a discourse through which these teachers named experiences and constructed a basis upon which they grounded their transformed understandings of themselves as teachers and their teaching. Depending on where these teachers were in their professional development when they wrote their narratives, we uncovered evidence of idealized conceptions of teaching with commitment to action as well as the transformation of teachers' material activities. Implications for the role teachers' narrative inquiry may play in teacher education programs are provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Explores the potentially dynamic leadership between effective continuing professional development (CPD) for teachers' learning and future of the teaching profession. Gap between central and classroom actions that demands simplistic and relatively undifferentiated forms of communication; Means of enhancing teaching and student learning; Details on the key aspects of practice that shape CPD.

This is a response to ‘Collaboration as Dialogue: Teachers and Researchers Engaged in Conversation and Professional Development’ (Clark et al., 1996), a narrative account of teacher-researcher collaborative research presented in Readers Theater format. The authors identified a powerful value tension in collaborative research—the unequal benefits that accrue to classroom teachers and academics engaged in research and publication—and suggested that this inequity could be surmounted by collaboration in the form of dialogue. Although the authors argued against generalizing from their experience or constructing an integrative theory, their observations are concordant with other collaborative situations where inequality exists. Our response proposes ways to address the issues they have identified without losing the power of a theoretical analysis. We contend that, by looking for commonalities and differences across settings, last, working methods goats, and values, a framework for understanding collaboration can be constructed that preserves the benefits of rich descriptive accounts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]