Participatory media for teacher professional development: toward a self-sustainable and democratic community of practice

Abstract

Financial and political pressures on the compulsory education teacher corps in the United States, as well as US higher education, demands a new approach to teacher professional development that shifts the focus away from repeated short-term university-based teacher professional development programmes and toward the nurturing of self-organized and self-sustaining teacher professional development communities of practice. The authors draw on six years of experience providing area studies teacher professional development to multiple cohorts of in-service and pre-service teachers in a hybrid environment to demonstrate a replicable approach to assisting teachers in building an evolving network of professionals in a self-sustaining, democratic community that can assist in the development of voice, agency, and capital for the participants.