Conceptualising and Evaluating Teachers’ Professional Learning

In the design of teacher education courses, assumptions are inevitably made about the nature of teaching, how teachers learn to teach and the substance of that learning. This paper examines some common assumptions and compares them with theoretical frameworks emerging from recent research on teachers’ knowledge and thinking. It is suggested that the theories and methods of research in this area have an important role to play in helping both to conceptualise and to evaluate programmes of professional training, and thereby contribute to the improvement of teachers’ practice.