Early career teachers (ECTs) are potential resources for educational innovation and development in schools. Innovative professional potential (IPP) emerges in interaction between ECTs and their school ecology. Using semi-structured timeline interviews, we explored 105 IPP experiences of 19 ECTs in the Netherlands, aiming to understand when and how…

Professional learning is increasingly understood as vital for the development of educators, and for the development of a strong educational system. We argue that the most essential purpose of professional learning is for the development of critical praxis. Critical praxis is related to action that is morally, socially and politically informed.…

Policy makers increasingly acknowledge that problems and challenges arising at the school level should be resolved on site. At the same time, the political expectation to delegate more responsibility to the individual school is rather heavily contrasted with the weak knowledge about how this new public management approach can be translated into…

Using social constructivist theories of adult learning and complexity thinking perspectives, a long-term, multi-tiered professional development (PD) programme was designed, implemented and evaluated at Qatar University. This qualitative study explored the systems of influence on 24 university teachers' professional agency for learning and leading…

Teacher leaders are increasingly leading learning conversations in professional learning communities (PLCs) in schools in several parts of the world today, but there is little empirical knowledge of teacher leadership in PLC conversations. Thus, this article aims to enhance such knowledge, particularly the development of teacher leadership in PLC…

This article examines leadership and practitioner professional learning (PL) across two multi-school networks. This ethnographic empirical study involved the development of research communities comprised of teacher-led research projects in collaboration with academic researchers (ourselves). We explore what the impact this type of PL and our role…

The vast literature on teacher professional development (PD) often assumes that the success of a PD programme should be measured by the extent to which the participating teachers accept and adopt, often in a relatively linear chain, the programme of learning, paying insufficient attention to how highly accomplished teachers respond to PD…

It is widely accepted that professional learning is a crucial aspect of the ongoing professional practice of educators. But how should this professional learning take place, and what arrangements enable and constrain practices associated with educator learning? In this article, we explore two case studies of action research projects: one…

This paper examines the role of professionalism in teachers' change in practice related to dialogue and argumentation. Data were collected from 14 pre-primary and primary school teachers who participated in a professional development programme with an emphasis on promoting values such as tolerance, empathy, inclusion and social responsibility…

Drawing on experiential learning and transformative learning theory, a transformative model of continuing professional development (CPD) was employed to implement symbolic gesturing in a day nursery. The model of CPD aimed to empower practitioners working with infants to have autonomy over their professional learning. Perspectives of the nursery…

This article reports findings from a larger study aimed at identifying the perceptions of teachers across four municipalities in Sweden on continuing professional development. It focuses on beginning teachers?, namely those who are in their first five years of their career. This study has been undertaken amidst growing concern that current models…

In the Netherlands, academically oriented programmes for primary teacher education have recently been established. The aim of this study is to provide insight in the extent to which graduates from these academically oriented programmes are involved in different forms of inquiry-based working and which factors promote or hinder this involvement.…

Excellence in higher education teaching has become a policy priority of governments worldwide in recent years. In the United Kingdom, for example, the introduction of the Teaching Excellence Framework in 2016 heralded an unprecedented focus on the quality of teaching. Set against the backdrop of such policy developments and wider global interest…

This study explores a school leaders' perspective on teacher professional agency. Tensions may arise when teachers feel hindered in their professional agency and try to negotiate their 'space' with other stakeholders (colleagues, students, management). School leaders are expected to empower and support teachers, but how do they perceive teachers'…

Professional school cultures, which can be characterized by teachers who take an inquiry stance and in which exchanging knowledge and collaboratively developing classroom material is common practice, receive increasing attention. However, teachers in many schools still often work in isolation and generally do not critically examine their…