Teacher Professional Learning

This book offers a vital new approach to teacher professional learning, drawing on teachers’ stories from the field. It investigates expert teachers’ professional learning and uses a narrative framework to analyse their meaning-making processes. The book focuses on how proficient teachers develop their expertise, emphasising that individual needs and the contextual nature of learning require a personally enacted approach.
Further, it explores the stories of five secondary school teachers, nominated by their colleagues for their outstanding expertise, to present new insights into expert teachers’ views. Using a new evidence-based approach, Enacted Personal Professional Learning, it incorporates teachers’ unique perspectives, problems and thought processes in order to understand expert teachers’ learning, and offers essential principles for promoting storytelling to help teachers be or become empowered educators who can actively shape education communities for teacher professional learning.

The purpose of this literature review study was to quantitatively examine the dominant paradigms in mathematics teacher professional learning/development research in South Africa for the 10-year period from 2006 to 2015, to complement an earlier study on research themes (Ndlovu, Invited lectures from the 13th International Congress on Mathematical Education, Springer, pp. 385–399, 2018). The research questions which guided the study were: (a) what were the dominant paradigms in mathematics teacher professional development research in South Africa during the 10-year period under review? and (b) What was the impact of the research? Seventy-two journal articles were purposefully selected for review by means of a Google Scholar search for journal articles. This was a shorter list compared with the previous list of reviewed articles largely due to the deletion of journals which got delisted. To answer the first question, the abstracts of the journal articles were analysed for the methodological approach adopted to classify them as either qualitative (interpretivist), quantitative (positivist) or mixed-methods (pragmatic). Where there was ambiguity in the abstract, the methodology section of the article was scrutinised. To answer the second question, Google Scholar citation rates drawn in June 2019 of the 72 journal articles were analysed. Findings were that 64% of studies fell within the interpretivist paradigm and 26% fell within the pragmatic paradigm, in terms of publication volumes. Citation rates for interpretivist studies stood at 64% and thus matched the publication rate perfectly. Studies in the pragmatic paradigm were cited less frequently at 22%, which was less than the publication rate. Studies in the positivist paradigm achieved the least number of citations collectively (136) but were the most cited per capita. An article-by-article citation rate showed the most frequently cited interpretivist themes to have been language in mathematics, professional learning communities as a sustainable vehicle for TP, mathematical knowledge for teaching and making connections in mathematics teaching and learning. The most frequently cited themes in the pragmatic paradigm were utilising learning environment assessment to improve teaching practices, school-based teacher professional learning (TPL) and mentoring as strategies for TPL. The most cited positivist themes were technology integration into the teaching and learning of mathematics and understanding of mathematical literacy.

Keywords
Interpretivist Positivist Pragmatic Mathematics teacher Professional learning Mathematical knowledge for teaching Practice-based professional learning Mentoring

As in other nations, in Australia, socioeconomic, educational, cultural and geographical factors collide with institutionalised curriculum and resourcing practices to produce disadvantage with respect to formal education participation and achievement in some schools. Unevenness of educational outcomes is strongly associated with poverty, with lower levels of attainment found in poorer urban postcodes and in regional and Indigenous schools. Among the many challenges faced by schools in these settings, availability of resources and provision of teacher professional learning to support curricular change is a perennial issue. This research investigated the impacts, outcomes, sustainability of a national curriculum implementation project designed specifically to support Australia’s most disadvantaged schools to implement the Digital Technologies (DT) curriciulum. The implementation project—Digital Technologies in Focus (DTIF)—was funded by the Federal govement and led by the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA). This output is the final report of external evaluation commissioned by ACARA and published on their website.
A case study design focussed on six schools selected to incorporate diversity of contextual factors (state, sector and location—urban, regional and remote) provided accounts of:
• contexts and histories of participating schools with regards to DT curriculum and resourcing;
• participation in DTIF project activities, including professional learning activities, online support, and project reporting and evaluation processes;
• outcomes of participation at for schools, teachers and students;
• impact and sustainability of new and developing practices.
The research findings contribute to understandings about challenges to implementation of DT curriculum in disadvantaged Australian schools and and factors promoting success, including transferred to other settings and other curriculum areas.

As a result of Race to the Top, states across the country vied for school improvement grants in order to advance educational reforms including effective professional development and teacher collaboration within their school districts. Requirements of the grant included the development of teacher evaluation systems and a professional development model to support teacher growth and efficacy. Grant recipients unanimously chose to incorporate some type of professional learning community (PLC) and selected models that emphasized increasing and sustaining teacher collaboration in all disciplines. PLCs offer an opportunity for music
educators to receive pedagogy specifically tailored to their discipline. Music teachers and arts supervisors should consider incorporating online PLCs into their programs not only to address professional development, but also to address teacher isolation and attrition and student achievement and, ultimately, to enact fundamental changes in their districts.

This study tests mediated principal leadership effects on teacher professional
learning through collegial trust, communication and collaboration in Hong
Kong primary schools. It is based on a series of single mediator studies,
and uses the same convenience sample of 970 teachers from 32 local
primary schools. It also adopts regression-based macros, integrated with
bootstrapping, to examine and compare sizes and proportions of potential
mediating effects of the three human relational variables. The findings
affirm the role and nature trust, communication, and collaboration play in
the mediated relationship. In contrast, the mediating power of collaboration
is non-significantly stronger than that of communication, and is more than
double that of trust. The conclusion is that a school environment featuring
mutual trust, effective communication and genuine collaboration is a core
condition for teacher learning and change. Provided that the forces that
bind people together in schools are multiple, principals are recommended
to create school culture and conditions strategically for teacher learning
to thrive.

This study attempted to identify effects of trust between principal leadership and teacher professional learning in Hong Kong primary schools. To verify the potential mediating effects of trust as a component of school capacity, survey data with a sample of 970 teachers from 32 local primary schools was used. Two questionnaires were combined to investigate principal leadership and school capacity in the schools. Baron and Kenny's four-step causal process for mediation analysis was employed to have a preliminary inquiry. To compensate weaknesses of the orthodox regression based approach, significance of the mediating effects of trust were tested using the Sobel's test and bootstrapping method. Next, the seven core sets of principal leadership practices were used as multiple predictors, and mediating effects of trust between them and teacher professional learning were also examined. The findings affirmed the role of faculty trust as a mediator between principal leadership and teacher professional learning in Hong Kong primary schools. A recurring theme in research on school leadership is evident in persisting efforts to discern how leadership focused on different facets of the organizational system impacts teaching and learning processes, teacher commitment, student learning, school quality and education equity (Bossert et al., 1982; Bridges, 1982; Hallinger and Heck, 1998; Leithwood and Sun, 2012; Pitner, 1988). Early research within this intellectual space examined the effects of principal leadership that employed varying degrees of initiating structure and consideration in interactions with teachers (see Boyan, 1988; Bridges, 1982; Campbell and Faber, 1961). A parallel line of research focused more specifically on identifying the contributions that principals' ''education-focused'' leadership

Among the major policies that have been implemented to ensure its continued success, Thinking Schools, Learning Nation (TSLN) has been described as the ‘big bang of educational reforms’ in Singapore. However, while the policy aims to develop critical thinkers in school leavers, the corporatisation of education in the shape of structures such as the school excellence model seems to be at odds with TSLN. This paper argues that these structures unwittingly engender a culture of performativity among schools, marginalising the central outcome of its initiative that entails developing a culture of thinking and thinkers. The tension is further exacerbated by the larger rationalities that have shaped Singapore and the pragmatic and instrumental philosophy which underpins its educational system. The tensions generated by the clash between intended (culture of thinking) and engendered culture (culture of performativity) present the challenge of mediation for the system on its path to realising TSLN.

Traditional professional development methods are not optimal for international school educators because of isolation, lack of funds and time to attend, disconnected content and inability to make a difference in the pedagogical approaches teachers use. The creation of online Personal Learning Networks (PLNs) has been suggested as an augment to or a replacement for traditional approaches. The purpose of this mixed methods study was three-fold: (a) to discover if international school educators are using social media for professional learning and if so, what tools they are choosing to use, (b) to discover if a relationship exists between the use of social media tools for informal professional learning and change in the pedagogical practices used by the teachers in international schools; and finally, (c) to describe how the use of social media may lead to a change in pedagogical practice. An explanatory sequential mixed method design was used to achieve this purpose, including 270 participants in the first phase and five in the second phase. Data collection included a quantitative online survey instrument and qualitative online interviews. Revealed in the findings was that international school teachers use various social media tools that meet specific needs, to build a PLN. Through intentional action international school educators supplemented professional development and changed their teaching practice creating an expanded and more authentic, constructivist learning environment. The PLNs in this study were able to reduce or remove the major concerns regarding professional development in international schools such as cost, contextual relevance, unvaried approaches and limited time.

Little has been written about the impact of ephemeral messaging technologies such as Snapchat, Wickr and iDelete on learner identities. The authors explore how disappearing social media may enable young people to take up a range of discourses and demonstrate discursive agency in ways that support social mobility through shifting relationships with their peers. Much of this unfolds through the transmission of digital images that promote social flexibility. The visibility, of seeing and being seen, demonstrates a Foucauldian ‘gaze’ where power plays out through the capacity to be visible and recognisable to others and specific practices (e.g. selfies) become normalised. Social media technologies furnish emergent spaces for underlife activity that foster this gaze. Taking up the Foucault’s concept of subjectivities as discursively constituted identity categories, the authors explore the relationship between disappearing media and youth identities.

The commercialisation of education and the massive recruitment of international students across different vocational education and training (VET) systems including the US, UK, Canada and Australia have led to significant changes in the VET teaching and learning landscape. This situation compels the VET sector to design and develop new professional development programs to support the immediate and changing needs of teachers working with the diverse international student cohort. However, to date, teacher professional development in response to the growing population of international students has not been an explicit focus of empirical study and theoretical conceptualisation in VET research. This study responds to this paucity. It draws on a broader three-year research project funded by the Australian Research Council (2014–2017) that involves fieldwork, participation in and observation of staff professional development activities and interviews with 102 VET staff in Australia. It uses positioning theory as a conceptual framework to examine how VET teachers position themselves and their professional development needs in response to international students. The results call for a critical need to re-examine the focus of the current professional development programs offered for VET teachers. The current context requires teacher professional development in international VET to focus on developing teachers’ capabilities to re-examine their pedagogical beliefs and practices and to understand international students’ various needs and cultural backgrounds. The study also stresses the importance of ongoing professional learning to equip teachers with the skills and knowledge to appropriate their pedagogical practices in response to the critical need to prepare all students for the intercultural labour market and to use students’ diversity as a resource for teaching and learning.

Information and communication technologies (ICTs) have become ubiquitous in our society. In particular, 10-12 year old (primary school aged) children report that they increasingly rely upon ICTs for social interaction and for learning (ACMA, 2013). In spite of the large number of students reporting high ICT use, research indicates that many primary school teachers are not making effective use of online resources in the classroom. Influencing this lower level use is a lack of specifically focused research that considers the vital role of the primary school teacher in the integration of ICTs into the classroom program. To identify where research is most needed and might be most useful to support teachers to increase the use of ICTs in the classroom, this paper draws on research conducted in primary, secondary and tertiary education. It defines three core areas in which research is needed. These areas are teachers’ internal (personal) and external (socio-cultural) barriers as well as the students’ role in, and expectations of, pedagogical changes to classroom learning.

This poster offers a summary of a book chapter which explores how lesson observations can be used to produce information that supports the development of teacher self-efficacy. It introduces a framework that will be useful to leaders and teachers wishing to consider how lesson observations can be used to promote teacher-self efficacy in their organisations.

This paper reports on change in teachers' perceptions of important elements of their role as teachers of mathematics at the conclusion of a two-year professional learning project. Analyses of written responses to survey items indicated shifts in four categories describing important elements of their role: teaching skills, knowledge, concepts; developing problem solvers; facilitating learning by providing quality activities, tasks, and resources; and fostering positive attitudes towards mathematics learning. Teachers attributed these perceived changes to the integration of a number of components within the project.

In education, issues of access and availability of technology has largely been reduced or eliminated (Ertmer, Ottenbreit-Leftwich, Sadik, Sendurur, & Sendurur, 2012). Despite the prevalence of ICT, educational practices have not mirrored societal preference (Ertmer & Ottenbreit-Leftwich, 2010). Even with the increase in availability, training, and support, diffusion of new technologies remains slow (Ertmer, 1999; Perrotta, 2013; Su, 2009). This lack of uptake directs the search towards internal second-order barriers, which are classified as intrinsic forces that impact on technology use (Ertmer & Ottenbreit-Leftwich, 2010; Ottenbreit-Leftwich, Glazewski, Newby, & Ertmer, 2010).

In this paper, I will interrogate the literature to dissect the links between internal factors and technology integration. These intrinsic barriers are the next major hurdle in technology adoption in teaching and learning (Ertmer et al., 2012). Teachers are the linchpin to all education reform (Fullan, 2007). Understanding the internal influencers on teacher uptake of technology are important considerations in improving ICT use in classrooms.

This paper presents initial findings of a qualitative study exploring K-12 leadership approaches that utilize external professional development (PD) support. The pilot study consisted of 19 questions asked in a semi-structured interview. Results of the study indicate that school administrators find a cooperative leadership approach, utilizing teacher PD, valuable for the implementation of non-mandated school wide initiatives. The study confirms that PD supports for school initiatives are an integral part of a school initiative implementations. Administrators identify external PD organization supports for an initiative as: provision of “big picture” information for administration, opportunity for staff to participate in PD opportunities and discussions, provide implementation resource materials, and where possible provision of ongoing, scaffolded training. The role administrators adopt with external PD organizations can be described as a project liaison. Further research on the effectiveness of PD organization support resulting in a change in teacher practice is needed.

This paper responds to Euler’s consideration of the use of design principles to bridge between knowledge production and practice design in the first issue of this journal; and particularly to the question he left open on how design principles should be formulated more concretely. It does so by extending the discussion of the use of Sandoval’s approach of ‘conjecture mapping’. In this discussion article, we reflect upon our own efforts at a related form of ‘bridge building’, specifically on work to span the gap in practice designs between the contexts of science
museums and more formal education settings. Museums offer opportunities for educational innovation. The evidence of impact of such innovation on the more formal learning environments, however, has been limited. Teachers in formal settings, it appears, tend to adopt individual exemplar activities, but do not transfer the innovative approaches to their
wider practice. The ambition of the project we examine here was to design teacher professional learning activities that allow participants to move beyond a focus on the specifications of a specific innovation and instead appreciate - to make concrete - the design principles in use. We will argue that conjecture mapping has been useful making design principles concrete but, in doing so, will point to the need for further research.

The success of alternative and flexible education settings, serving young people for whom mainstream schooling has not worked well, rests on the practices of their staff. This paper explores interview and survey data on the professional learning experiences and perceptions of staff working in flexible learning programmes across Victoria, Australia. These settings are often associated with innovative educational practice, as well as a freedom to act outside of dominant neoliberal logics governing teachers’ work and limiting possibilities for ‘transformative’ professional learning. This paper shows staff engaged in a diversity of professional learning activities mediated through interactions with colleagues and responsive to locally determined needs. The paper focuses on three core components – ‘external events’, ‘internal stuff’ and ‘cross program’ – to explore what staff perceive to be valuable professional learning in supporting their practice. Themes of authenticity, collegiality and trust, as well as tensions between reworking and reaffirming practice are considered. The highly collaborative nature of professional learning and apparent privileging of internal ‘within sector’ knowledge is argued to bring possibilities for strong support for staff and expeditious cross-fertilisation of practice whilst also posing risks in terms of endangering innovation, flexibility and diversity. Areas of fruitful future research are identified.

This paper discusses a number of elements of the knowledge building process that were evident amongst educators in Indonesia. These educators took part in the discussion board of an online learning community, called OLC4TPD (Online Learning Community for Teacher ...

The purpose of this literature review study was to quantitatively examine the dominant paradigms in mathematics teacher professional learning/development research in South Africa for the 10 year period from 2006-2015, to complement an earlier study on research themes (Ndlovu, 2018). The research questions which guided the study were a) what were the dominant paradigms in mathematics teacher professional development research in South Africa during the 10 year period under review?, b) What was the impact of the research? Seventy-two journal articles were purposefully selected for review by means of a Google Scholar search for journal articles. This was a shorter list compared with the previous list of reviewed articles largely due to the deletion of journals which got delisted. To answer the first question, the abstracts of the journal articles were analysed for the methodological approach adopted to classify them as either qualitative (interpretivist), quantitative (positivist) or mixed-methods (pragmatic). Where there was ambiguity in the abstract, the methodology section of the article was scrutinized. To answer the second question, Google Scholar citation rates drawn in June 2019 of the 72 journal articles were analysed. Findings were that 64% of studies fell within the interpretivist paradigm, 26% fell within the pragmatic paradigm, in terms of publication volumes. Citation rates for interpretivist studies stood at 64% and thus matched the publication rate perfectly. Studies in the pragmatic paradigm were cited less frequently at 22%, which was less than the publication rate. Studies in the positivist paradigm achieved the least number of citations collectively (136) but were the most cited per capita. An article-by-article citation rate showed the most frequently cited interpretivist themes to have been language in mathematics, professional learning communities as a sustainable vehicle for TP, mathematical knowledge for teaching, and making connections in mathematics teaching and learning. The most frequently cited themes in the pragmatic paradigm were utilising learning environment assessment to improve teaching practices, school-based teacher professional learning (TPL) and mentoring as strategies for TPL, and. The most cited positivist themes were technology integration into the teaching and learning of mathematics and understanding of Mathematical Literacy.

The purpose of this article is to report on an investigation of the perceptions and performance of mathematics teachers in a teacher professional learning (TPL) programme based on realistic mathematics education (RME) principles, which included a topic on transformations, undertaken by the researcher. Forty-seven Senior Phase (Grade 7–9) teachers took part in the mixed-methods study in which they answered a questionnaire with both closed and open-ended items. Fifty teachers took an achievement test at the end of the programme. The TPL programme used the RME approach in the design and delivery of mathematical tasks intended to enhance teachers’ mathematical knowledge for teaching. The sessions were conducted in a manner that modelled one way in which RME principles can be adopted as a teacher professional development strategy. The significance of the study is that continuing TPL is acknowledged to contribute to improvement in teaching and learning to address the concern about unsatis...

Among the major policies that have been implemented to ensure its continued success, Thinking Schools, Learning Nation (TSLN) has been described as the ‘big bang of educational reforms’ in Singapore. However, while the policy aims to develop critical thinkers in school leavers, the corporatisation of education in the shape of structures such as the school excellence model seems to be at odds with TSLN. This paper argues that these structures unwittingly engender a culture of performativity among schools, marginalising the central outcome of its initiative that entails developing a culture of thinking and thinkers. The tension is further exacerbated by the larger rationalities that have shaped Singapore and the pragmatic and instrumental philosophy which underpins its educational system. The tensions generated by the clash between intended (culture of thinking) and engendered culture (culture of performativity) present the challenge of mediation for the system on its path to realisin...

Az erősödő európai integrációs törekvések, amelyek egyre időszerűbbé teszik a magas szintű idegen nyelvi oktatást, immár hazánkban is jelentkeznek. A nyelvtanítás feltételeinek megteremtése a módszertanilag jól felkészült tanárok feladata. A címben szereplő kötet értékét éppen abban látom, hogy tudományos szemszögből vizsgálja a nyelvtanár-képzéssel kapcsolatos problémákat és összegzi az eddigi tapasztalatokat. Franciszek Grucza lengyel akadémikus irányítása alatt a Varsói Egyetemen létrejött Alkalmazott Nyelvészeti Intézet a maga nemében Lengyelországban az egyetlen. Falai között több éve folynak kutatások, melyeknek eredményeiről tudományos konferenciákon számolnak be, az előadások anyagát kötetekben jelentetik meg. Ez a gyűjtemény a Varsói és a Hamburgi Egyetem együttműködésének gyümölcse. Számos figyelemreméltó tanulmány közül most azokat emelném ki, melyek véleményem szerint a leginkább tarthatnak számot a nyelvoktatással foglalkozó szakemberek érdeklődésére. A kötet három nagyobb egységre oszlik. Az első részben a szerző szempontokat kíván nyújtani a tudományos alapon történő nyelvtanár-képzéshez. Franciszek Grucza, Ansätze zu einer Theorie der Ausbildung von Fremdsprachenlehrern. 7-87. o.) A másodikban a nyelvtanár-képzés jelenlegi helyzetéről és az ezzel kapcsolatban jelentkező követelmé-nyekről olvashatunk. (Hans-Jürgen Krumm, Die wissenschaftliche Aus-bildung von Fremdsprachenlehrern-Anspruch und Wirklichkeit. 97-109. o.) A harmadik rész pedig a glottodidaktikai kompetencia és a videomagnó oktatásban betöltött szerepét tárgyalja. (Barbara Grucza, Glottodidaktische Kompetenz und das Videotraining. 113-126. o.)

In response to rapidly changing communication practices in an increasingly technological world, evolving literacy concepts such as multimodality, are now acknowledged in the new Australian Curriculum. Ironically, primary school teacher professional development in Western Australia remains closely tied to a mono-modal, print focussed paradigm. This study integrated the multiliteracies and communities of practice frameworks, aiming to generate participatory professional learning about new literacy concepts. This qualitative case study explored how one group of seven public primary schoolteachers from outer metropolitan WA, collaboratively transformed their literacy learning during a scaffolded 'multiliteracies book club'. Spanning six months and including five book club meetings and two focus groups, teachers collaborated with the researcher-facilitator (first author) in multimodal practices using diverse text formats and resources. This paper presents early thematic analysis ...

In response to rapidly changing communication practices in an increasingly technological world, evolving literacy concepts such as multimodality, are now acknowledged in the new Australian Curriculum. Ironically, primary school teacher professional development in Western Australia remains closely tied to a mono-modal, print focussed paradigm. This study integrated the multiliteracies and communities of practice frameworks, aiming to generate participatory professional learning about new literacy concepts. This qualitative case study explored how one group of seven public primary schoolteachers from outer metropolitan WA, collaboratively transformed their literacy learning during a scaffolded 'multiliteracies book club'. Spanning six months and including five book club meetings and two focus groups, teachers collaborated with the researcher-facilitator (first author) in multimodal practices using diverse text formats and resources. This paper presents early thematic analysis ...

This paper responds to Euler's consideration of the use of design principles to bridge between knowledge production and practice design in the first issue of this journal; and particularly to the question he left open on how design principles should be formulated more concretely. It does so by extending the discussion of the use of Sandoval's approach of 'conjecture mapping'. In this discussion article, we reflect upon our own efforts at a related form of 'bridge building', specifically on work to span the gap in practice designs between the contexts of science museums and more formal education settings. Museums offer opportunities for educational innovation. The evidence of impact of such innovation on the more formal le- arning environments, however, has been limited. Teachers in formal settings, it appears, tend to adopt individual exemplar activities, but do not transfer the innovative approaches to their wider practice. The ambition of the project we exa...

The purpose of this article is to report on an investigation of the perceptions and performance
of mathematics teachers in a teacher professional learning (TPL) programme based on
realistic mathematics education (RME) principles, which included a topic on transformations,
undertaken by the researcher. Forty-seven Senior Phase (Grade 7–9) teachers took part in the
mixed-methods study in which they answered a questionnaire with both closed and openended
items. Fifty teachers took an achievement test at the end of the programme. The TPL
programme used the RME approach in the design and delivery of mathematical tasks intended
to enhance teachers’ mathematical knowledge for teaching. The sessions were conducted
in a manner that modelled one way in which RME principles can be adopted as a teacher
professional development strategy. The significance of the study is that continuing TPL is
acknowledged to contribute to improvement in teaching and learning to address the concern
about unsatisfactory learner achievement in mathematics. The responses suggested that the
majority of teachers experienced the sessions positively in relation to all but one of the six
RME principles. The teachers reported that they took an active part both as individuals and
in small groups and expressed their willingness to adopt the type of activities and materials
for their classrooms, which is an essential first step in Guskey’s first level of evaluation of a
teacher TPL programme. The teachers’ average performance in an achievement test at the end
of the topic was 72% which was indicative of modest learning gains at Guskey’s second level
of TPL effectiveness