Section archive - Professional Development

This paper explores one thread from a longitudinal research programme: that relating to senior managers’ and teacher educators’ reported views and experiences of the collaboration and the impact of the co-constructive approach taken on professional development. It examines the impact of the approach taken to collaboration, which included the development and sharing of a pedagogical model for teacher education (ARM: action, reflection, modelling) and reflects on the value of this to professional learning and development. The findings suggest that co-construction of a programme can provide an effective approach to developing teacher education. In this collaboration, because the two elements of trust and shared understanding were achieved, the teacher educators in both countries were empowered to analyse critically what the UK participants brought in the context of local practice.

This article presents a measurement instrument (TERDS) to measure teacher educators’ self-reported researcherly disposition throughout their working lives. The first part of the article reports the results of factor analysis (EFA and CFA), which suggest a four-factor structure of teacher educators’ researcherly disposition: (1) ‘ valuing research’, (2) ‘being a smart consumer of research’, (3) ‘ being able to conduct research’, and (4) ‘conducting research’. Goodness of fit estimates were calculated, indicating good fit. The authors conclude that by using the instrument to explore differences between several subgroups of teacher educators, this study enhances empirical understanding of a previously ‘undiscovered’ and ‘neglected’ professional group.

This research broadly focuses on two distinct concerns: the first relates to what constitutes high-quality professional learning; and the second relates to the implementation of professional learning at the classroom level. This paper addresses each of these concerns by identifying the features of effective professional learning: focus, learning components, feedback, collaborative practices, temporal elements and coherence. The analysis of the three-case study schools suggests that the greatest benefit of system-based professional learning is the level of coherence it can provide.

The present study compared Chinese kindergarten teachers' values and perceptions of program quality with trained raters' assessments of quality in order to gain insights into effective professional development for improving teacher quality. Results shows teachers' beliefs of quality is the strongest predictor of their self-assessment. Implications of the findings for professional development are provided, along with limitations of the current study and recommendations for future studies.