Between continuity and change: identities and narratives within teacher professional development

This year-long ethnographic case study examined high school teachers’ participation in technology-focused professional development. By pairing a dialogical perspective on teacher identity with a micro-level analysis of narratives, findings indicate that teachers use language and other semiotic resources to express their own identity as well as to acknowledge, expand on, and counter others’ identity claims. Moreover, technology integration may challenge teachers’ established identities or threaten their authority in the classroom. This analysis suggests that teacher educators need to value teachers’ established and emergent identities as well as create space for dialogic narratives in order to facilitate technology integration in schools.     

The sustainability of a teacher professional development programme for beginning urban teachers

This study investigated the long-term effects of a professional development intervention for beginning urban teachers and explored which characteristics and activities in school organisations contributed to the sustainability of these effects. A quasi-experimental study (n = 72) investigated whether the positive effects of the programme were observed one year after the programme ended. Interviews with teachers and principals (n = 19) were used to explore which characteristics and activities in schools contributed to those positive effects. A significant long-term effect of the programme was found on teachers’ competences and professional orientation. An open culture in the schools was experienced as an important factor for the sustainability of the programme’s effects.     

Storytelling as dialogue: how teachers construct professional knowledge

This study shows how a group of English language lecturers use storytelling as a form of professional dialogue. The aim of the study is to highlight the dialogic role of storytelling in supporting the construction of lecturers' professional knowledge and not to identify lecturers' professional knowledge. In a professional development project, 12 lecturers created digital stories about their experiences of professional development. These stories were shared with colleagues who then responded with their own digital stories. A narrative framework was used to analyse stories for the types of connections lecturers made between stories. Five dialogic processes were identified: connecting, echoing, developing, questioning and constructing. Excerpts of stories are used to demonstrate how lecturers construct professional knowledge through storytelling. The study concludes by outlining the potential and limitations of storytelling as an approach to professional development and proposes further research into the dialogic capacity of storytelling in a professional development context.     

Teacher collaboration and professional development in the workplace: a study of Portuguese teachers

This article reports on findings from research aimed at investigating teacher collaboration and professional development in the workplace. It draws upon a broader study carried out in a school in Northern Portugal. Data were collected through questionnaires, semi-structured interviews and written reflective accounts. In total, 80 teachers participated in phase 1, 11 key informants participated in phase 2 and 10 teachers participated in an intervention/training project (phase 3). Findings suggest that problems and limitations in relation to collaborative work are situated at the organisational level, such as time and working conditions. Lack of training in collaboration, and issues such as motivation and personal difficulties, also emerged from the data. Teachers tend to stress the importance of interpersonal relationships at school, but they also identified formal meetings when they described the contexts and opportunities to work collaboratively in the workplace, namely department meetings and projects driven by central government or school administration initiatives. Implications for teacher collaboration and professional development are discussed.     

Personally driven professional development: reflective self-study as a way for teachers to take control of their own professional development

This article is about personally driven professional development through the use of reflective self-study. The argument that teachers need to take responsibility for their own learning while also taking decisions on how and in what areas to develop is strongly made throughout the article. Data for this article were gathered over a 10-year period where the author engaged in several studies using self-study as methodology. Between studies, the author kept using reflective self-study as a professional development tool, and it is these data between various studies that were analysed using thematic and reflective analysis. Such analysis resulted in various overarching themes that show how reflective self-study can be of benefit if used by teachers researching their own classrooms. Benefits include teachers taking full ownership of their learning, relevance of learning, learning that is ongoing and not restricted to specific times and places, taking problematic situations as learning opportunities and how other sources take on new relevance through reflective self-study. Some implications for teacher-education programmes and current school structures are also discussed.     

美国科学教师专业发展标准及其启示

美国科学课程教师专业发展标准是美国科学课程教师培养的重要依据,其特点为:重视科学课程教师正确的科学观与探究能力的形成,为科学课程教师构建综合、完整的知识结构,倡导终身、连续、一体化的培养模式。我国应加快研制自己的科学课程教师专业发展标准,使我国科学课程教师专业发展体现终身性、综合性、探究性与创新性。     

Special issue of TEJ: what is to be done with curriculum and educational foundations’ critical knowledges? New qualitative research on conscientizing preservice and in-service teachers

ABSTRACT

In this essay, we provide a brief introductory statement to the special issue of Teaching Education titled What is To Be Done with Curriculum and Educational Foundations’ Critical Knowledges? New Qualitative Research on Conscientizing Preservice and In-Service Teachers. In our introductory statement, we describe the specific aim and broad purposes of the special issue and characterize its contents. Our specific aim with the special issue is to advance the conscientization of preservice and in-service teachers via critical pedagogies and race-based epistemologies. Our broad purposes are to (a) resist the ascendant, whitened, and Eurocentric fascism via our collective pedagogical labor in teacher education and (b) reorient curriculum and educational foundations' critical knowledges toward institutional praxis. We conclude our introductory statement by characterizing the contents of the special issue for teacher educators and teacher education researchers.     

美国教师专业发展的几种模式及启示

随着教师专业化的发展,美国对教师专业发展采用不同层次的发展模式,主要有教师专业发展学校;学习型组织与团队学习;教师个人专业发展计划与自我教学实践反思等。将教师的职前培养,初任教师的过渡,在职教师的继续教育一体化,促进教师的专业成长。其成功的经验可以为我国教师专业发展提供借鉴。     

From pre-service to in-service teachers: a longitudinal investigation of the professional development of English language teachers in secondary schools

This study reports on a longitudinal inquiry into professional identity construction among six novice cross-border English language teachers from mainland China, who completed their pre-service teacher education in Hong Kong (HK) and began their teaching practice in local HK schools. The findings indicate that the participants navigated obstacles in teaching by deploying their own multiple languages as a cultural and linguistic repertoire. The findings also show that the teachers experienced difficulty legitimising their professional identity in the teaching community, where contextual issues and power interplays mediated the process. Furthermore, it is found that the participants’ commitment to teaching was negatively influenced by their non-legitimate position in the teaching community and the discordance between their teaching beliefs and the norms and values of their workplace. This study suggests that complex inter-relationships between marginal status in and legitimate membership of the community, between historical and cultural background, present practice, and future expectations, between social discourse and personal location, are involved in the process of identity construction. Measures to legitimate these teachers’ position and to transform the linguistic and cultural repertories of these teachers into valuable resources of the local schools are suggested. Implications for future research are outlined.     

试论高校教师专业发展的影响因素及路径选择

在当前的高校教学改革过程中,教师是最为关键和活跃的因素,也是最为重要的决定性因素。教学的发展与改革必然涉及到一线教师,教师素质显得尤为重要。教师的专业发展关注教师的个人能力、素质等的提升和发展,因此,是教学改革必须关注的重要内容之一。文章围绕教师专业发展的影响因素进行分析,探析提升教师专业发展水平的路径选择,使得教师专业发展得到相关的保障,多方面协助教师专业发展,提升教师教书育人水平和高校教学改革的质量。     

高校大学英语教师专业发展——走合作教学路径

根据《大学英语课程教学要求》和基于目前高校大学英语教师专业发展现状,深入剖析通过合作教学实现高校大学英语教师专业发展的可行性,最后提出具体对策分析。     

Environmental education professional development for teachers: A study of the impact and influence of mentoring

Rivers2Lake helps teachers learn to provide watershed educational experiences for students through a summer institute followed by mentoring. Teacher focus groups were conducted to investigate the impact of mentoring, as well as toward understanding what was influential in bringing about those impacts. Mentoring impacted teachers in affective ways and helped them use what they learned at the institute. The influential nature of the mentoring may be due to the mentors providing a sense of accountability, personalized support, as well as encouragement of reflection and assistance with navigating barriers. Teachers also articulated qualities of effective mentors: invested, flexible, and responsive. With teachers varying in the degree to which they felt they could continue R2L implementation without the support of mentors, implications are discussed.     

Inconvenient truths about teacher learning: towards professional development 3.0

Based on recent findings about teacher learning, a critical analysis of traditional and new approaches to professional development is presented. To a large degree, teacher learning takes place unconsciously and involves cognitive, emotional and motivational dimensions. Moreover, teacher learning takes place at various levels. Although these insights may be inconvenient truths to policy-makers, empirical evidence is presented showing that approaches building on the multi-level and multi-dimensional nature of teacher learning are effective at influencing teacher behaviour. Hence, in teacher learning, the connection with the person of the teacher is crucial. Practical consequences for professional development are discussed.     

从“固化”到“转型”:基于成长型思维的教师专业发展及其实现

思维方式作为支撑教师专业发展的核心,在某种程度上决定着教师专业发展的深度与高度。在场域型塑、课程固化与工作重复等因素作用下,教师专业发展很容易陷入思维固化。成长型思维的丰富内涵与独特价值,为突破教师专业发展的思维固化提供了转型基础。策略在于:教师需要检视自身的思维方式,切实意识到成长型思维对专业发展的决定作用;动态地调控思维过程,促使专业发展在成长型思维引领下积极前行;敢于直面思维局限,突破专业发展的瓶颈以达到新高度;充分发挥思维的预测功能,对专业发展的未来进行合理规划。     

Within and beyond a grow-your-own-teacher program: Documenting the contextualized preparation and professional development experiences of critically conscious Latina teachers

ABSTRACT

This study provides an account of seven Latina teachers’ select educational, professional, and personal experiences over the past 10 years as they completed a grow-your-own-teacher program, became licensed teachers, and established themselves in Latinx minority–majority public schools within their rural, mid-western community. More specifically, as a Latina researcher and participant observer, I sought to better understand the culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) Latina teachers’ process-oriented engagement and conscientization over time. Far from being ‘ready-made’ conscientized teachers, in this work I discuss the ways CLD Latina teachers’ multiple and developing identities as bilingual learners, mothers, racialized minorities in schools, and educated professionals serve as both burdens and gifts in their engagement and processes of conscientization for teaching CLD students. Through the use of critical literatures, and life and professional story methodologies informed by Chicana feminist epistemologies, I sought to privilege Latina teachers’ narratives as well as uncover the mechanisms and experiences that proved most impactful for their development and sustainment within white normative educational spaces. Findings illustrate an emergence of racialized, identitarian resources among Latinas and implicate a nuanced, culturally contextualized, pedagogical approach to pre-/in-service CLD teacher professional development that engages participants in reflective storying, critical inquiry, and restorative community building.     

Relational agency and teacher development: a CHAT analysis of a collaborative professional inquiry project with biology teachers

Teacher quality largely determines student outcomes and many argue for high quality teacher training and professional development (PD). Much PD has been heavily critiqued and what constitutes effective provision for teachers remains contested. Disenfranchisement of teachers, through neglect of prior expertise and failure to acknowledge teachers’ working contexts, some argue, are to blame. A PD project with five biology teachers and a teacher educator, grounded within a cultural, historical activity theoretical (CHAT) tradition, was initiated to address these shortcomings. Edwards’ concept of relational agency was employed to investigate and interpret teacher collaboration. Teachers’ perceptions about the project were gathered using free-response questionnaires and semi-structured interviews, with the data being analysed using a CHAT framework. The positive impact on teacher practice reported here was related to having opportunities to own and be responsible for one’s own and others’ development, exploiting the distributed expertise available and supporting collaborative work.     

Action research as a tool of professional development of advisers and teachers in Croatia

Whilst educational action research is not unknown in Croatia, its use is not widespread. In part, this might be because action research assumes a high level of autonomy for practitioner–researchers, and a constructivist view of knowledge, neither of which are traditional characteristics of the Croatian system. This article reports on a capacity building programme in which 18 senior advisers from the Education and Teacher Training Agency developed action research projects in Croatian schools. The article outlines the context of the programme, describes the programme itself, and presents an analysis of the advisers’ action research projects. This shows that action research was used by advisers, supporting teachers, to effect change in schools. The principles of action research were generally understood, and produced evidence of practical change, collaboration and mutual understanding. Although action research is generally understood as a ‘grassroots movement’ this article suggests that action research can lead to desirable change, even when imported from elsewhere. Thus action research holds one answer to the question, how to promote beneficial life‐long learning among education professionals.