Section archive - Professional Development

This article explores the experiences of four individuals who changed careers into early childhood teaching in Victoria, Australia and later left the profession. The study was conducted with a narrative inquiry approach and reveals insight into motivations for becoming an early childhood teacher (ECT), experiences of being an ECT and factors that lead to un-becoming an ECT. Participants were motivated by pragmatic reasons such as career advancement and family-work compatibility alongside intrinsic interest when becoming an ECT. They entered the profession eager to support children’s learning and development. However, their experiences compromised their health and wellbeing and inhibited them from teaching as they envisioned. The findings of the study hold implications for policy makers, employers and higher education in effort to retain and sustain ECTs.

Using a broad-based assessment for understanding what teachers learn in historic site-based professional development (HSBPD), this study follows 29 teachers from a HSBPD at Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello to see how their work at historic sites affected their practice upon return to their classrooms. Influenced by the Interconnected Model of Teacher Growth and Complexity theory, this study considers the complex outcomes of teachers as individuals, professionals, and learners in communities of practice. Results explore a range of outcomes related to content, pedagogical content knowledge, working with peers, interactions with the historic site, and a willingness to reconsider historical information. The discussion offers a consideration of the network of HSBPDs as a cumulative system and the ways in which teachers’ on-site work can deepen our understanding of working with complex historical sources and make larger curricular changes.

Based on a conceptual framework applying recent research knowledge, this study investigates the relationships between teacher participation in school-based professional development and its individual and school contextual antecedents and effects on teachers and teaching in the context of mainland China. A total of 1506 secondary school teachers responded to a questionnaire survey. The results show that teachers’ willingness to attend teaching research activities and supportive principal leadership facilitated teacher participation. Among the three dimensions of teacher participation, it was collective lesson planning and teacher collegiality, not the frequency of participation, that improved teacher efficacy and the adoption of desirable teaching strategies. These results enrich the knowledge about the characteristics and effectiveness of teacher professional development in China. The implications of the findings are discussed.

This research explores evidence-based teaching portfolios as authentic and continuous professional development involving cross-sectoral and cross-contextual teacher collaboration. Qualitative data analysed from teachers with experience teaching at post-primary, in a national teacher support service, in higher education and in teacher education are discussed. The original claim this paper makes is that many process and practice outcomes elicited during the process of portfolio development are useful for teachers working together across sectors, and therefore valuable for teachers and learners, along and across the education continuum. Key findings indicate that a cross-sectoral group can create knowledge, which is personalised and contextualised to each teacher’s teaching philosophy, yet informed by practitioners from different sectors. The merging of a research design through dual structuring of collaborative workshops with individualised mentoring and self-study inquiry enabled meaningful dialogue and reflection among the teachers’ from varied settings. Finally, the creation of a personalised and contextualised written teaching portfolio, afforded the teachers evidence of their own professional learning during and following the research process. This collective and individualised learning informed realisations and plans for relational and pedagogical change among the cross-sectoral group.