Professional development can be used as a tool to increase teacher confidence and competence. Consequently, it may improve the quality of education available to students. Previous research suggests that many teachers lack the confidence to teach health despite it being an area that they are expected to teach. This paper locates and considers the…

This short reflection explores both the challenges and potentials of teacher professional learning in contemporary times. It argues that the neoliberal logics of professional development as deployed in many contexts around the world limit and curtail the potential for teachers to engage in generative professional learning that fosters growth and…

In this article, we analyse teacher professional development in five European countries (Italy, Germany, France, England and Finland), comparing their approaches to teacher professional learning and development (PLD). We performed this task using a general framework based on what several studies highlighted so far as key-features in educational…

This study explores mindfulness-based teaching and learning (MBTL) as an emerging field of transprofessional practice spanning educational, organisational, and clinical professions. Recognising the need for a more robust set of transprofessional MBTL teacher competencies to serve this emerging specialisation, the authors developed and validated…

Against the backdrop of global convergences in education reforms, a growing focus on teacher competences has emerged in European policy discourses about teacher professionalism and professional learning and development that has driven an expanding international and national CPD market involving both state and private operators. Developments in…

This paper investigates how professional learning of teachers might be improved by two key factors: distributed leadership and teacher agency. Designed as a cross-sectional survey, this study used data from a total of 283 teachers working in a mix of public primary, secondary, and high schools across nine provinces in the eastern, central, and…

Highly Accomplished Teachers (HATs) think deeply about skilled pedagogy in ways that illuminate its complexity and the challenges of pedagogical change. The sophistication, breadth, and depth of their thinking often goes well beyond the way that teachers and their responses to professional development (PD) are typically positioned in the…

In this study, we introduce an analytic framework for effective professional development programmes (PDPs) that has been synthesised and derived from the literature. The framework acknowledges that certain design features concerning how to process the content as well as the methods to facilitate teachers' enactment are important but also…

The purpose of this study is to portray Special Rank Teachers' morality development in China. Interview data were collected from 14 Special Rank Teachers from 13 provinces in China in 2018. Analyses of the findings revealed that Special Rank Teachers' morality, like their other professional competences, follows a development progress. This study…

Personal observations suggest that science lecturers in higher education do not always feel comfortable engaging with the support offered through academic development initiatives. At a research-intensive university in the UK, research was conducted using a mixed-methods approach to establish how science lecturers engaged with continual…

This theoretical study examines the mentoring situation and how it might be adjusted to contribute optimally to building pre-service teachers' competences. The study first presents an original theoretical conceptualisation based on which the dynamics of competence building is defined. This conceptualisation is then empirically illustrated and a…

The current neoliberal political climate in education has narrowed the focus of teachers' professional development and reduced their work in the classroom to a simple and predictable process. In this article, we challenge this view by deploying a range of complexity thinking concepts to present an account of teachers as self-organising, inquiring,…

Teacher professional development (PD) is about change. One of the most prominent lines of research on PD addresses what makes it an effective change process. This research produces critical features of effective PD, the seemingly active ingredients of teacher change that are meant to guide professionals in the design, implementation, and…

A considerable body of literature has shown the benefits of lesson study, but little attention has been paid to the determinants of lesson study involvement. This study examines how teachers' participation in lesson study is affected by their attitudes towards lesson study as well as their perceived competence. A multilevel logistic regression…

Professional learning is an essential component of the institutional conditions required for a high-quality first-year student experience. Initiatives to improve students' determinative first year in higher education have expanded but one area notably absent in the literature pertains to professional learning tailored to meet the needs of…