Teacher Learning and Development Across the Continuum: Pre-service to In-Service

Educational reform movements around the world are setting ambitious goals for student learning, and major developments in classroom practices largely rely on teachers who need support and guidance (Ball and Cohen in Teaching as the learning profession: Handbook of policy and practice, Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, CA, pp. 3–32, 1999; Fullan and Miles in Phi Delta Kappan 73:745–752, 1992). If schools are to produce more powerful learning for students, more powerful learning opportunities must be offered to teachers (Feiman-Nemser in Teachers College Record 103(6), 1013–1055, 2001). Unless teachers have access to serious and sustained learning opportunities at every stage of their career, they will be unlikely to teach in ways that meet the demanding new standards for student learning or participate in the solution of educational problems.