Models of Teacher Professional Development

Abstract

It is a known fact that the usual “deficit” model of teacher professional development (PD) is no longer effective in developing teachers professionally. This chapter presents three models of continuing PD that exemplify a critical development in the professional development of teachers in Singapore and also many parts of the world. This development reflects a shift in the centre of gravity away from the University-based, “supply-side”, “off-line” forms of knowledge production by university professors for teachers towards an emergent school-based, demand-side, on-line, in situ forms of knowledge production by teachers with support from university professors. The first model is a hybrid one that integrates the “training model of PD” with sustained support for mathematics teachers to integrate knowledge gained from the PD into their classroom practice. The second model is the laboratory class, a school-based PD programme for primary school mathematics teachers that evolved from a lesson study process. The third model is networked learning communities. In such communities, teachers work and learn collaboratively to examine and reflect on their practice. As teachers learn from one another, with one another, and on behalf of others, they are engaged in purposeful and sustained developmental activities to co-create knowledge and share it with their fraternity.