Many countries have a diverse early childhood education and care (ECEC) workforce, comprising educators with a range of qualifications and backgrounds. This diversity creates challenges for professional development, as educators with different qualifications (including university degrees and vocational qualifications) may have different strengths…

In an effort to offer a more focussed and competency-based approach to faculty development for newly appointed academics, this study prioritised the roles of the medical teacher, focussing on orientation initiatives. At a research-led university, we used 15 roles of a medical teacher. Health science academics were asked which professional…

Professional development of teacher educators has received growing attention in recent years owing to their important role in preparing teachers for schools and universities, however, female-dominated mid-career EFL teacher educators in regional teacher education universities remain underexplored. This study examined 18 female experienced teacher…

Practitioners need to invest in professional development to enhance credibility, job security and employment prospects. Employer expectations of continuing development as a performance measure link to the notion of career capital; namely that knowledge competence influences job advancement. This study uses an interpretivist approach to explore…

This study examines how participation in a US Department of Education policy fellowship influenced the career pathways of teacher leaders. This sample of teacher leaders is illustrative of teacher leadership development beyond the classroom and demonstrates challenges and opportunities. Notably, 64% of participants reported changing their…

During graduate school, students learn to navigate the workplace that many will seek to enter. For those pursuing an academic career, the faculty advisor is invaluable. Although research has revealed associations between advisor satisfaction and specific academic outcomes, the advisor's role in students' career prospects is unknown. Thus, the aim…

Continuous professional learning and development (PLD) is an essential component of effective practice in any profession. PLD as a professional responsibility and workplace requirement in early childhood (EC) settings is now embedded in Australian national policy. What PLD looks like and how it happens in EC settings is a hot topic both locally…

The shift towards school-led teacher education steered by the government in England challenges the "traditional" model of experienced teachers leaving school and entering the higher education sector to become teacher educators. More teachers are undertaking the dual role of teacher and teacher educator, leading the professional learning…

This paper explores how to develop teacher leaders across the career span. It offers a conceptual framework with three central tenets of teacher leadership: an emphasis on inquiry, a social justice imperative and an expanded understanding of teachers' roles in schools, communities and society. This model foregrounds the primary role that teachers…

This qualitative study sought to identify current principal professional development practices in four school systems in Georgia and to examine them by applying the principles of adult learning theory. The cross-case analysis of principal professional development initiatives in four school districts revealed nine common practices: connecting…

In this work we study the meaning of professional development as a participative process within a community of practice. In this collaborative narrative self-study we look at the development of ourselves as a professional group working together in an intensive program. The study is based on personal career stories, each told by its author, but…

In South Africa, until recently, mentoring has not been formalized as part of school leadership induction programmes or of leadership professional development. However, the South African government identified mentoring as a distinctive aspect of its pilot leadership development programme for school principals. This programme signalled a shift from…

The design and early implementation of a major national design initiative in England, the Masters in Teaching and Learning (MTL), is described in this paper. This novel hybrid master's degree seeks to span the traditional academic-practitioner divide, reconstitute the theory-practice dynamic as reciprocal and co-construct an authentic signature…

Since 2003, doctoral education has become a key feature within the remit of the Bologna Process. Perceived as a crucial link between the European Higher Education Area and the European Research Area, it is perceived as the cornerstone upon which will be built Europe's future world-class research excellence. Yet consideration of how European…

This article reports on outcomes from a study funded by the National College for School Leadership designed to explore the factors that assist in the leadership development of teachers at a number of stages of their career development. More specifically, the study sought to identify issues associated with leadership talent identification,…